Help, herniated T6/T7

newhere · #1 (**permalink**) 02-01-2011, 09:26 PM

like the thread say, herniated t6 t7. Suffering allready 2 years. Every doctor say that herniation is to small to cause pain. Please some info about sugery or some "helpfull" thing, altough i try every consevative treatment. Tnx

mmglobal · #2 (**permalink**) 02-01-2011, 09:57 PM

Newhere... welcome to the forum.

Motion preservations technologies are usually not in play for the t-spine because there is so little motion there.

Typical endoscopic techniques are not in play because there is so much bony structure around the t-spine, it's hard to get in without removing so much bone that the stability is too severely impacted.

Dr. Jho in Pittsburgh does a 'keyhole' surgery where he accesses the canal area from the front of the spine by drilling through the vertebral body. I would not do this procedure with anyone else, or with anyone who's done hundreds and has been doing it for years. This will never be in the range of the average surgeon.

Dr. Regan does VATS surgery at this level... less invasive than traditional thoracic surgeries.

XLIF procedures are even less invasive.

Hopefully, you'll get away without surgery, but if you must be cut... do your homework... make informed decisions!

Mark

jsewell · #3 (**permalink**) 02-02-2011, 04:31 AM

Hi Newhere
I had terrible thoracic pain and did have the VATS procedure done by DrRegan. My spine surgeon sent me to him as DrRegan is well known and highly regarded. My experience with him was not good. He did remover the T-6 disc that was bothering me terribly for years. Also he was supposed to remove T11-12. WEll at the end of the surgery i had lost lots of blood, he never gave me any, had problems with my oxygen saturation and kept on going to remove hardware in the back that he did not discuss with me.
I ended up that day on a respirator as i stopped breathing. He never came to see me during my 12 day hospital stay, no one ever looked at my incision or told me how to take care of it. Then he went away for 2 weeks.
I went back to my spine surgeon for treatment.
My regular spine surgeon would have had to do an open thoracotomy to get to the disc (which i ended up having a partial thoracotamy to untrap my lung)
So i highly do not recommend DrRegan, he spends no time with his patients and would not answer any of my questions when i confronted him.
judy

newhere · #4 (**permalink**) 02-02-2011, 10:22 AM

oh man...

i have considered two options. Dr. jho or Dr. Regan.
Now when i read yours comments,i dont know what to do. Both of them,is then "failure"???

((((((((

newhere · #5 (**permalink**) 02-02-2011, 10:26 AM

and jsewell,how are you since your thoracotomy? which level have you operated? im only 25 and i want to live...this constant pain is killing me!
so please some more info for ancourage me

Maria · #6 (**permalink**) 02-02-2011, 03:48 PM

Re read what mmglobal stated re Dr.Jho. I read/understood that Mark wouldn't go with anyone who didn't have as much experience as Dr.Jho and that this was out of the range of the average surgeon which Dr.Jho isn't (if I'm reading correctly what Mark wrote). If you considered Dr.Jho and Dr.Regan perhaps you'd want to still consider Dr.Jho based on what was written here. I had a good experience w/consult with Dr.Regan but no surgery w/him.