Moore Faust Injury Law Group are not medial doctors and the information below is merely an overview of the subject and should not be a substitute for competent medial evaluations and diagnosis by a licensed, trained medial specialist in the subject.

The following procedures are often seen in the treatment of serious injuries.

Your neck needs to be strong to hold up your head, which may weigh 10 pounds or more. But injuries can damage the structures of your cervical spine. Pain and weakness in your neck and arms may result.

The upper spine is a flexible column made up of the cervical vertebrae. These seven bones are separated by spongy, shock-absorbing disks. The spinal cord runs through a large central opening (spinal canal) formed by the vertebrae. Nerves branching from the spinal cord travel to your arms and other parts of your body through small openings (foramina) between the vertebrae.

One of the most common cervical spine problems is a damaged disk or herniated disk. For more information, please see Disk Herniations below.

Do you suffer from nagging neck and arm pain or weakness caused by a disk problem in your cervical spine or other accident spinal surgical injuries? Ongoing pain or weakness in your neck or arm can restrict the use of your arm and hand. This can impair your ability to work. Even worse, you may have found that none of the treatments you have tried have relieved your symptoms. You may feel as though pain has taken over your life.

Most cervical disk problems improve with non-surgical care. But many people find relieve from pain and weakness only after cervical disk surgery. During this surgery, your surgeon may be able to treat the problem causing your symptoms and allow you to take control of your life again.

Disk herniations at various levels of the spine are a common result of trauma to victims involved in an automobile accident or motorcycle crash. This section discusses the components of disk herniations in the cervical and lumbar spine.

One of the most common cervical spine problems is a damaged disk. A disk may be injured and bulge outward resulting in a herniation.

With a herniated disk, the annulus tears or the nucleus pushes through the annulus. The herniated portion of the disk may press on a nearby nerve. This may cause neck or arm pain, or weakness in the arm.

Often surgery, described in our medical library, is the only option to return to anything close to life as you knew before the accident caused by the negligence of another.

Radio frequency is the use of electrical current to block transmission in pain pathways. It has been used to destroy pain transmission to the trigeminal ganglion, dorsal root ganglion, facet joints, and sympathetic tissue. The electric current is transmitted through a needle placed into the specific neural tissue necessary under x-ray guidance. Radio frequency can be used to treat patients with the following types of pain:

• Neck pain (Associated with traumatic facet arthropathy)
• Headaches
• Back pain (Associated with traumatic facet arthropathy)
• Radiculopathy
• Pain involving the sympathetic nervous system

Traumatic facet arthropathy (spondylitis) can result in severe pain and poor range of motion. This trauma causes an inflammatory cascade which ultimately stimulates and irritates a C-fiber nerve called the medial branch nerve (MBN).

The MBN causes pain and massive reactive spasm, and the treatment focuses on first blocking the MBN and then, if the block is successful, it proves that denervation will be effective in relieving the patient’s pain.

Denervation allows posture to correct and gives the body a chance to heal without constant reinjury from spasm and asymmetric posture and limited range of motion.

There are many types of accident spinal surgical injuries, including percutaneous diskectomy is an outpatient procedure that uses x-ray pictures and a video screen as a guide for your surgeon to reach and fix the damaged disk. The incision, made in the small of your back is about the size of a puncture wound. Because your surgeon can see the damaged disk on a video screen, it’s not necessary to remove bone to view and reach the disk. After surgery, a small bandage is placed over the incision.

To reach the disk, your surgeon may use a suction probe, laser probe, or forceps. After inserting the instrument into the disk, your surgeon removes the damage disk material.

Diskectomy — To remove the disk material that is causing the pain, your surgeon first makes an incision in the midline of your back. Then, to see and reach the damaged disk, your surgeon removes some or all of the lamina. Next your surgeon removes the disk material that is pressing on the nerve.

Microdiskectomy — This surgery is much like the diskectomy described above, however, you surgeon uses an operating microscope to magnify, highlight, and see the disk. A magnified view means that the incision, located in the midline of your back, is smaller than that of a diskectomy, with less damage to surrounding tissue.

Persistent pain in your low back or leg caused by spinal disk problems can be frustrating because it limits your ability to move and do the things you enjoy. To manage these problems, you have to follow your doctor’s conservative treatment plan. If this fails, surgery can help relive your pain by treating your disk problem.

Your disk problem may be corrected by a diskectomy, the surgical removal of the portion of the disk that’s putting pressure on a nerve, causing pain in your back or leg. Your surgeon may recommend a diskectomy, microdiskectomy or a percutaneous diskectomy.