How to Prevent Migraines

Throbbing headache. Blurred vision. Sensitivity to light and sound. Nausea. Sound familiar? At least 16 to 17 percent of the world’s population will experience a migraine at some point in their lives, but for many, migraines are a part of daily life.

A migraine can be simply debilitating, when all you can think about is getting to a dark, quiet place to lie down and rest. Migraines can mean missing work or school, and even missing out on important, they-only-happen-once, life events.

There are some medications that can reduce the number and severity of migraines, but lifestyle changes are also strongly recommended to help prevent and/or alleviate the pain associated with migraines. If you suffer from migraines, try these migraine prevention tips.

• Get regular exercise. Aerobic exercise helps to reduce tension and prevent migraines. Choose a form of exercise you enjoy — walking, swimming or cycling or even dancing. Make time for 30 minutes of aerobic exercise every day. Exercise also aids weight loss, which may also help to prevent migraines.
• Avoid migraine triggers. For many people, migraines are triggered by certain food or scents. If you notice that a specific food or scent has triggered migraines in the past, try to avoid them.
• Get plenty of rest. Regular sleep patterns can help to reduce tension and stress that lead to migraines. Establish a regular sleep pattern means going to bed and getting up at the same time, every day. To help yourself sleep, turn off all electronics at least an hour before your bedtime, turn down the lights and allow yourself to relax.
• Reduce stress. Stress is a common cause of migraines. Find ways to reduce your stress, whether through exercise, meditation or simply relaxing at home.
• Reduce estrogen levels. For some women, estrogen can induce migraine headaches or make them work. If this is the case for you, avoid medications such as birth control and other hormone pills that contain estrogen.

If you suffer from chronic migraines, talk with your doctor about pain management and lifestyle changes that may help reduce your headache main.

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Pain Prevention

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Once you encounter back or neck pain, you are four times as likely to experience it again. This is why prevention is essential to your long-term recovery.

One of the best ways to avoid back pain is by exercising and stretching. Low-impact aerobics, such as walking or swimming, is an ideal way to prevent or treat back pain. Stop if the exercise becomes painful, and always remember to stretch. Stretching is easy to incorporate into your daily routine. You can even do it in front of the television.

Below are some more specific ways to prevent back or neck injuries:

Sitting for long periods

The spine likes movement. Anything that puts the spine in a static position creates stress, which can cause back and neck pain. Every hour, stand, walk around, bend, arch backward gently, and twist. Doing so at regular intervals will lengthen the amount of time you can sit comfortably. Also, get an ergonomically-designed chair or an orthopedic insert to support your spine, especially if your job involves long periods of sitting. Or roll up a towel, and place it behind your low back.

A comfortable way to stand

Prolonged standing can also strain the back. If you have to stand for long periods of time, prop one foot on a small stool or telephone book to reduce stress in the low back. Alternate with the other foot. Every half hour, bend over and touch your toes, with your knees slightly bent, or do some of the stretching exercises shown in the Seton Spine and Scoliosis website. They will help loosen your muscles, ligaments and joints.

Plane rides

While traveling on a plane, it helps to raise your feet on a briefcase or a bag underneath the seat in front of you. Ask for a pillow to place behind your low back to improve lumbar support. It is important to get up frequently and walk to the bathroom and back, whenever possible. Avoid hour-long periods in your seat.

The best sleeping position

Avoid sleeping on your stomach, which arches your back and puts pressure on your spine. Instead, lie on your back with a small pillow tucked under your knees. This position unloads the spine. An alternate position is to lie on your side with a pillow between your knees. If you like sleeping on your stomach, place a soft, flat pillow under your stomach to eliminate some of the arch that can stress your back.

Mattress considerations

It is important to sleep on a mattress with optimal back support, whether it is a conventional mattress or a waterbed. Older waterbeds were mushy and provided little support. However, now there are waterbeds that allow you to adjust their firmness. A good mattress should relate to your body shape. Generally, go with what feels comfortable to you.

Pain is a signal from the body to the brain that something is wrong. Either the back is too weak, too inflexible, or the wrong body mechanics were used to perform a task.

 

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A new hope for back pain sufferers?

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(CBS News) Back pain is one of the most common of human complaints, which is why new treatments in the works are raising so many hopes. Our Sunday Morning Cover Story is reported now by Martha Teichner:

 

Consider the human spine, in all its glory.

 

The 24 vertebrae, cushioned by gelatinous discs . . . the little facet joints that help make your back flexible . . . all the ligaments and muscles and nerves.

 

The spine’s elegant complexity is a miracle of engineering, or a curse when something goes wrong.

 

Eight out of ten Americans will experience debilitating back pain sometime in their lives.

 

“My pain was very excruciating,” said Lenda. “I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t bend over. I couldn’t lie down.”

 

“I’d say, ‘Oh Lord, can’t you help my back, it does hurt bad’ – he didn’t help me a bit,” said Leila.

 

And the most common culprit?

 

“I think most people would think it’s the inter-vertebral discs, whether it’s herniated or whether it’s just worn and arthritic and associated with pain,” said Dr. Augustus White, a professor at Harvard Medical School. He has literally written the book on lower back pain.

 

He says the easiest way to understand a herniated disc is to think of a jelly doughnut: When what Dr. White calls “the jelly” gets squeezed out, it presses on nerves, which can mean excruciating pain. Barring serious illness, the first line of treatment may not be what the patient (who only wants a quick fix) wants to hear.

 

“You need to make sure the patient doesn’t have tumor or infection,” said Dr. White, “but once you rule those out, you can be confident that you’re not going to harm the patient by saying, ‘OK, give yourself four to six weeks.'”

 

Believe it or not, 90 percent of disc injuries heal themselves after a few weeks, especially with physical therapy. But waiting it out can be torture, and not everybody gets better. So that’s where surgery comes in.

 

More than 1.2 million Americans undergo spinal surgery each year. That’s more than TRIPLE the number of coronary by-pass surgeries (415,000), and nearly FOUR TIMES the number of hip replacements (327,000).

 

Approximately 300,000 of those back surgeries were spinal fusions, where vertebrae are joined surgically so they can’t move. They’re often held in place, permanently, with metal screws or rods.

 

For many patients, surgery is the only answer – salvation. But for all too many others, it can be a nightmare.

 

Which brings us to Dr. Kevin Pauza, a founder of the Texas Spine and Joint Hospital in Tyler, Texas.

 

“I spent decades treating patients who’ve had surgery, the surgery was fusions,” Dr. pauza said. “Patients would do well for a year or two, and they’d always come to me and need more help.”

 

In his experience, fusion was usually the wrong answer: “The spine’s made to be a structure that bends with every movement we make, and if we immobilize a segment of the spine, the adjacent segment breaks down. That’s known as the domino effect.

 

“So my thought was, can we do something to that disc so that we don’t have to fuse it? Can we bring the disc back to life?”

 

And that’s the headline of this story. Just imagine: A procedure that repairs and re-grows discs, that doesn’t involve spinal fusion, that’s no more than minimally invasive, outpatient surgery.

 

The inspiration came to him when he thought about something as basic as how an ordinary cut heals.

 

“I realized what heals a cut is something that’s very simple: It’s two products that are in you and I, they’re in everybody.”

 

In our blood plasma – they’re called thrombin and fibrinogen. For the cut to heal, the two components come together, and they make a substance called fibrin.

 

When the two components, in concentrated form, are injected into the disc through a kind of squirt gun Pauza invented, just like epoxy glue, they combine and become fibrin.

 

Injected into the damaged disc, the compound acts like a sealant, filling cracks and crevices, and eventually allowing the disc to re-grow. “It allows our degenerated disc to turn into a young, healthy, normal disc,” said Dr. Pauza.

 

Rusty Templeton is typical of Dr. Pauza’s failed fusion patients. He had his surgery in 2008, but the pain came back and was agonizing.

 

“I’ve kind of damaged the disc above and below my fusion, and of course that fusion disc is also in pretty bad disrepair,” said Templeton.

 

Templeton is given a local anesthetic. The procedure takes about five minutes…there’s no incision..no hardware…

 

Typically, at first, patients feel discomfort. “Some patients even say, ‘Gosh, I wish I never had this done,'” said Dr. Pauza. “And then several weeks later, the patients just turn a corner. We tell them that they can expect that there will be one day where they have pain, and the next day, it’ll just stop.”

 

Dr. Pauza is hoping for Food and Drug Administration approval of the procedure by 2015, and to make it available to the public shortly thereafter. Phase III clinical trials are underway now at 20 sites around the U.S.

 

Dr. Pauza has successfully treated more than a thousand patients in his private practice. “We started treating the first patients approximately five or six years ago, and the success rate is approximately 86 percent,” he said.

 

So how did Rusty Templeton do? “My pain before was at least a ten,” he said. And two months after the procedure? “It’s still around a five, because I have underlying issues. But I can lay down now. I can, you know, walk around. I can drive where I couldn’t drive before.

 

“The pain level I had before the procedure was probably around anywhere from about a six to worse, eight,” he said.

 

Christopher Joseph is a home restorer who was in a car accident. How was his pain two months after the procedure? “Right now, it’s at zero.”

 

Dr. Michael DePalma is a spine specialist in Richmond, Va. The North American Spine Society has just published his paper on the latest experimental therapies involving disc restoration.

 

“Stem cells are something that’s being investigated to replenish cells within the disc directly, injecting growth factors, which are proteins, to try to stimulate repair in a disc have also been evaluated,” said Dr. DePalma.

 

He is involved in 4 different FDA trials of the new procedures and believes these so-called biologics are the future of back treatment. Based on the results so far, he thinks Dr. Pauza’s fibrin sealant offers the most promise.

 

If the treatment, asked Tecihner, is even 50% successful with someone, is that significant? Dr. DePalma replied, “It’d be huge.”

 

And then there’s the cost. Compare spinal fusion and fibrin treatment: “The treatment for a fusion – and this is the hospital fee – typically is in the $100,000 range, not including the physician’s fee,” he said. “We don’t have a set cost for [fibrin] treatment yet, but it’s approximately 95 percent less than the cost of a fusion.”

 

Dr. Pauza expects it to be widely available within five years.

 

“It’s the first time in history that we’ve been able to cause new tissue to grow within the spine. This procedure is the procedure that really the world has been waiting for,” he said.

 

Is it? The procedure is only for back pain sufferers with specific disc problems, but there are a lot of those . . . and Dr. Kevin Pauza is absolutely sure he’s found a better, safer, cheaper way of improving their lives.

 

 

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BecomePainFree.com Treats

• https://www.becomepainfree.com/
  Herniated discs
• Pinched nerves
• Degenerative spine disease
• Spinal stenosis
• Spondylolisthesis (slipped spine)
• Scoliosis (deformity)
• Low back pain / neck pain
• Spine trauma
• Spine infection
• Osteoporotic fractures
• Spine and spinal cord tumors
• Peripheral nerve injury
• Chiari malformation
• Cavernous malformation
• Vascular malformation

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Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery

Minimally Invasive Surgery:

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Recent surgical advancements have focused on performing surgery through smaller incisions, with less disruption to surrounding soft-tissues. The idea behind minimally invasive surgery is to perform the same treatment without damage to normal surrounding tissues. The drawback of minimally invasive surgery is that sometimes the underlying problem may not be adequately addressed because of an inability to get to the problem. Whenever a new minimally invasive procedure is introduced, there is almost always controversy as to whether or not the procedure is as good as traditional surgery.

Endoscopic Spine Surgery:

Endoscopic spine surgery uses specialized video equipment inserted through small incisions to see the structures of the spine. Similar to arthroscopic surgery of a joint, endoscopic surgery has advanced over the past decade from merely being able to look to the area of interest, to the ability to repair and reconstruct a variety of complex problems.The benefit of endoscopic spine surgery is the potential to address problems through very small incisions. By not damaging the muscles around the spine, recovery can often be much faster than with a larger surgical exposure.

Microdiscectomy, Microlaminectomy and Microforamenotomy:

All of these micro-surgeries are variations of standard surgeries used to take pressure off of the nerves around the spinal cord. Traditionally done through larger incisions, the micro procedures use smaller incisions and specialized surgical instruments to accomplish the same goals of traditional surgery.There is no rule on where the line between traditional surgery and micro surgery is drawn. To some doctors this means a smaller incision, to others it means the use of special surgical instruments. Many variations of a procedure could be considered micro surgery.

Laser Spine Surgery:

Laser spine surgery is a technique that uses a laser to remove damaged tissues. Because a laser can be inserted through small incisions, it can be used to cut away damaged tissues (such as disc fragments) without having to make a large incision.There is significant controversy about laser spine surgery as this technique has not been shown to have significant benefits, despite advertising that may make you think otherwise. Often marketed in magazines and the Internet, laser spine surgery has become the focus of some lawsuits formisleading patients about expected results from surgery.

Is It Better?:

Is minimally invasive surgery better? There are many ways to answer this question. The bottom line is that we simply do not know. There are theoretic advantages, and there are possible downsides. But there are very few studies that compare the possible risks with the potential benefits of minimally invasive surgery.The bottom line I suggest is to find a surgeon who, above all, is interested in fixing your problem, not someone who is selling you on a smaller incision. If the same benefit can be achieved without damage to normal tissues, then minimally invasive surgery may be a good option.

_Sources:

_{Mathews HH and Long BH “Minimally Invasive Techniques for the Treatment of Intervertebral Disk Herniation” J. Am. Acad. Orthop. Surg., March/April 2002; 10: 80 – 85.}

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Confusion about Spinal Fusion, Spine Fusion, Spine Fusion Surgery, Back Fusion Surgery, Back Surgery

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Spinal Fusion is used to treat spinal instability and alleviate chronic mechanical back pain but many people are unsure of what spinal fusion actually does.  Spinal fusion is surgery to permanently connect two or more vertebrae in your spine, eliminating motion between them.

Spinal fusion involves many techniques designed to mimic the normal healing process of broken bones. During spinal fusion, your surgeon places bone or a bone-like material within the space between two spinal vertebrae. Metal plates, screws and rods may be used to hold the vertebrae all together, so they can heal into one solid unit.

Because spinal fusion surgery immobilizes parts of your spine, it changes the way your spine can move. This places additional stress and strain on the vertebrae above and below the fused portion, and may increase the rate at which those areas of your spine degenerate.

BecomePainFree.com can help

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Fellowship trained Orthopaedic Surgeon with extensive training in Spine Surgery with offices in Arlington and Fort Worth, Texas, TX, Spine Surgeon Plano Texas, Spine Surgeon Fort Worth Texas, John Sazy MD, Dr. Sazy

The lumbar region in regards to the rest of the spine. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dr. John Sazy is a fellowship trained Orthopaedic Surgeon with extensive training in Spine Surgery with offices in Arlington and Fort Worth, Texas. Dr. Sazy evaluates for and performs reconstructive spine surgery, revision spine surgery, scoliosis surgery and all other types of orthopedic related problems and conditions. This includes but not limited to: shoulders, elbows, wrists/hands, knee and foot/ankle. He also performs total joint replacements and revision total joint procedures.

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Dr. Sazy is an Orthopaedic Surgeon with Become Pain Free.

Type of Spine Care Professional

• Orthopedic Surgeon

Areas of Expertise

Conditions

• Abdominal Pain
• Acute Pain
• Auto/Work Related Injuries
• Back Pain
• Bursitis
• Cancer Vertebral Pain
• Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
• Cervical Spine Disorders
• Chest Wall Pain
• Chronic Pain
• Coccydynia
• Complex Regional Pain Syndrome
• Complex Spine Disorders
• Degenerative Conditions
• Extremity Dysfunction / Pain
• Facet Joint Pain
• Facet Syndrome
• Failed Back Surgery Syndrome
• Foot Drop
• Foot Pain
• Fracture
• Groin Pain

• Herniated/Bulging Disc
• Hip Pain
• Infections
• Joint Pain/Injury
• Knee Pain
• Kyphosis
• Leg Pain
• Ligament strain
• Low Back Pain
• Lower Back Pain
• Lumbar Spine Disorders
• Meniscal tears
• Migraine headaches
• Muscle Strain/Pain
• Musculoskeletal Disorders
• Myalgias
• Myelopathy
• Myositis
• Neck Pain
• Nerve Conditions
• Neuropathic Pain
• Osteoarthritis

• Osteoperosis
• Osteoporotic Compression Fractures
• Pain After Shingles
• Piriformis Syndrome
• Post Surgery Functional Problems
• Post Surgery Pain
• Radicular Pain
• Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD)
• Rotator cuff injury
• Sacroiliac joint dysfunction
• Sciatica
• Scoliosis
• Shoulder Pain
• Spinal Deformity
• Spinal Stenosis
• Spinal Trauma
• Spondylolisthesis
• Spondylosis
• Tumors
• Work Injuries

Treatments

• ALIF (anterior lumbar interbody fusion)
• Anterior Cervical Discectomy / Decompression
• Arthroscopic Knee Surgery
• Artificial Disc Replacement
• Axial Lumbar Interbody Fusion (AxiaLIF®)
• Back Surgery
• CT Analysis
• CT Scan
• Cervical Spine Fusion Instrumentation
• Cervical Spine Surgery
• Decompression
• Disc Arthroplasty
• Discectomy
• Discography
• Dynamic lumbar stabilization
• Endoscopic Microdiscectomy
• Injections
• Joint Injections
• Knee Injections
• Kyphoplasty
• Laminectomy/Decompression Surgery

• Laminoplasty
• Lower Back Surgery
• Lumbar Corpectomy
• Lumbar Spine Fusion Instrumentation
• MRI Analysis
• Microdiscectomy / Microdecompression
• Minimally Invasive Interbody Fusion
• Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery
• Myelography
• Myelography Analysis
• Neck Surgery
• Nonsurgical Treatment and Diagnosis
• Nucleoplasty
• PLIF (posterior lumbar interbody fusion)
• Pediatric Spine Treatments-Surgical
• Percutaneous Spinal Fusion
• Physical Medicine & Rehabiliation
• Posterior Cervical Decompression
• Posterior Cervical Discectomy
• Posterior Cervical Foraminotomy
• Posterolateral Lumbar Fusion

• Reconstructive/Revision Spine Surgery
• Revision Total Joints
• Sacroiliac joint fusion
• Scoliosis Sugery
• Shoulder Injections
• Shoulder Surgery
• Spinal Decompression
• Spinal Fusion
• Spinal Injections
• Spinal Reconstruction
• Spinal Rehabilitation
• TLIF (transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion)
• Total Hip Replacement
• Total Knee Replacement
• Total Shoulder Replacement
• Upper Back Surgery
• Vertebroplasty
• X-ray Analysis
• XLIF (lateral lumbar interbody fusion)

Languages

Languages Spoken: English, Spanish

Certifications

• Board Eligible, American Board of Orthoaedic Surgery

Professional Distinctions

• The Chicago Spine Fellowship Orthopaedics and Scoliosis LTD
• Rush Medical College & Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children, Chicago Unit, Chicago IL.

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Spine Surgery, Back Surgery, Spine Pain, Back Pain, Pain, When your surgeon may discuss surgical treatments for you

Surgery Station (Photo credit: Cristiano Maia)

Your surgeon may possibly recommend spine surgery if your spine is not stable or you have a neurologic dysfunction issue. In many cases, if back pain and symptoms are not responsive to non-operative therapies, surgery may normally be considered.  If your surgeon team discusses these surgical options with you, be assured his or her recommendation is made with the greatest possible concern to your healthcare issues.

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Back Surgery, Spine Surgery, Spinal surgery relieves back pain

Every year, 600,000 Americans undergo spine surgery – but even more feel back pain. Between 80 and 90 percent of Americans experience some form of excruciating back pain in their lifetime. NBC’s Tom Costello reports.

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NBC News Truck (Photo credit: Indiana Public Media)

Spine Surgery, Pain, Back Surgery, Posterior Spinal Fusion, P.S.F.

In a posterior spinal fusion your spine surgeon or neuro surgeon adds bone graft at the back of your spine during surgery to fuse two or more vertebrae together.

The word posterior also refers to the surgical approach, where the skin incision is made; the rear or back of the spine.

 

Orientation of vertebrae (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Spinal fusion

Spinal fusion uses bone graft to stimulate bone(s) to heal together—to fuse solid.  Bone graft is packed into many empty spaces between the vertebral bodies and around instrumentation (if added).  As your spine heals, the bone graft stimulates your bone to make new bone and with time, joins bones together.

Bone graft type	What it is
Autograft	Bone from your body
Allograft	Donor bone
Biologics	Made from proteins

 

Purpose of spinal instrumentation

Instrumentation immediately stabilizes the spine.  It is a general term that refers to spinal implants.  Spinal implants and devices that may be posteriorly implanted, put or affixed to the back of the spine include interspinous devices, AxiaLIF, plates, rods, screws, wires, and hooks.  Implants are made from materials such as stainless steel or titanium alloy etc.

Our Posterior spinal fusion procedures

There are many types of posterior spinal fusion procedures.  Several are listed below.

• Posterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion (PLIF)
• AxiaLIF
• Posterior Cervical Laminectomy and Fusion
• Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery

Another surgical approach is Direct Lateral Interbody Fusion (DLIF).  The procedure involves small skin incision(s) at the side of the spine.  DLIF is a less invasive surgical approach that avoids cutting through muscles and soft tissues.  During a normal DLIF approach, your spine surgeon or neurosurgeon can access the spine through the psoas muscle (at the side of your low back).

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