Spine

A chiropractor could be the right person to handle this. Chiropractors are medical professional who specifically have experience with spine problems, they try to cure or correct misaligned bones or pinching nerves. By adjusting or re-aligning the vertebrae into the normal position and removing the pressure from the nerves via decompression or other methods you get a real back pain relief on your back pain spine. The cervical spine disorders might get cured without the use of drugs or surgery.

When the nerve system is somehow irritated, but we cant read the signs or symptoms yet a checkup with a chiropractor could be the right thing since health problems are better cured before they become painful.

The spinal column or vertebrae can be misaligned without any signs or symptoms felt,  just like a doctor will check
your heart beat, the chiropractor will check the alignment of your spinal bones to screen for a misaligned vertebrae. By correcting this misalignment, chiropractic adjustments seek to prevent pain from occurring in the first place.

A series of chiropractic treatments to check and correct the spine if necessary are important for lifetime health and wellness.

Here is a typical procedure on to try to help you via Spine cement and Spine repair

Dr. Tim Allen, an interventional radiologist with Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, injected a medical-grade cement into Margaret Buessing's spine at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center. Allen used a fluoroscope to check the position of the needle; the cement is mixed with barium so it shows up on X-ray. The cement helps stabilize the vertebrae following a compression fracture.

Vertebroplasty: Spine cement can be used to repair osteoporotic spinal fractures

Margaret Buessing's back pain was so bad, she was unable to get out of bed.

When the 81-year-old Axtell woman was taken to the hospital in Seneca, doctors determined that Buessing, who has osteoporosis, had suffered a compression fracture in her spine.

Then last week, Buessing underwent a surgical procedure in Topeka known as vertebroplasty, in which medical-grade cement is inserted into a patient's spine. Only an hour after the procedure, she was sitting up in her hospital bed.

"Oh! Mother, dear, dear!" her delighted husband, Joe, 87, exclaimed as he hurried to her side, arms outstretched. Margaret, who was scheduled to be released from St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center later that night, said she didn't have any pain after the procedure. She talked eagerly of being able to go back to the cozy home she and Joe had just recently moved into.

"That's how dramatic it is," said Lynne Dryer Voigt, acute care nurse practitioner with Radiology and Nuclear Medicine. "That's the exciting thing about the procedure."

Margaret Buessing thought the procedure sounded a little scary when it was first explained to her, but she had an inside source to reassure her: her daughter, Connie Rottinghaus, is a radiologic technologist at St. Francis, and was in the operating room when the procedure was performed.

Vertebroplasty is not a new procedure; it was pioneered in France in the mid-1980s, then refined in the United States in the 1990s. Currently only Dr. Tim Allen, an interventional radiologist at Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, does the procedure in Topeka, although he performs it at both Stormont-Vail HealthCare and St. Francis. He's done about 100 cases since 1999, including a woman who was 100 years old.

Most compression fractures are due to the effects of osteoporosis, but they also can occur in younger people who have had to take steroids for other medical conditions, such as leukemia, lupus and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The conventional treatment for these fractures, Allen said, has been analgesics and bed rest; it can take six weeks for a bone to heal, but often, the patient will get some relief in a few weeks. Other methods of supporting the bone as it heals, such as back braces, have been tried, but haven't been as successful.

"Some do well and will heal with pain medication and rest," Allen said, adding, "We do see people who are incapacitated by the fracture. With elderly people who are very frail, it takes very little to push them over the edge."

Some of the advantages of vertebroplasty for spine problems is that it's much less invasive than back surgery would be, and it strengthens the bone from the inside-out.

Each vertebrae consists of a solid, circular body, which supports the weight of the spine, a hollow center that encloses the spinal cord, and three projections known as pedicles. For the procedure, Buessing was given a local anesthetic and sedated. Using a fluoroscope, which projects an X-ray image onto a screen, Allen located the vertebrae and carefully positioned a needle about the size of a cocktail straw above the pedicle of the vertebrae. When the needle was in place, he gently tapped it through the skin, through the pedestal, until it was in position in the body of the vertebrae.

Next, Allen and Ryan Jackson, R.N., mixed a medical-grade surgical cement, polymethylmethacrylate, with an antibiotic and barium. The cement sets up in minutes, so they kept it in a large syringe to keep it viscous until they were ready to inject it into Buessing. The antibiotic is used to prevent infection, and the barium allows the radiologist to see the cement as it flows into the bone on X-ray, Allen said. That way, "we can prevent it from going into the spinal canal or embolyzing to the lungs," Allen said. The whole procedure takes about an hour to perform, and uses only a teaspoon or two of the cement.

"It's made a big difference," said Dr. James Owen, chairman of the department of radiology with St. Francis and also at Radiology and Nuclear Medicine. The procedure is particularly impressive in its "ability to stabilize the spine and relieve the pain fairly quickly."
Although the U.S. Food and Drug Association considers vertebroplasty an "off-label" use for the cement, polymethylmethacrylate has been used for more than 30 years in artificial joints and other medical uses and the procedure itself is not considered experimental. It's covered by Medicare.

As helpful as the procedure can be, it's not a spine cure-all, Allen said. The best candidates for vertebroplasty are those with recent fractures. The procedure is not suitable for people who have had long- term chronic back pain, or even as a preventative measure for people with osteoporosis, Allen said.

Risk factors for spine osteoporosis include being fair-skinned; advanced age; going through menopause before age 45 or surgically induced menopause; low calcium intake; being Caucasian or Asian; having a thin, small build; excessive use of steroids or thyroid hormones; family history of osteoporosis or fractures; and lifestyle factors such as lack of weight-bearing exercise, smoking, excessive alcohol use and excessive caffeine consumption.

Weight-bearing exercise for spine improvement includes such things as walking and lifting weights. Swimming and using a stationary bike, while they can be good exercise, are not weight-bearing exercises, Waldy said. It's important for women, even as early as their teen years, to eat plenty of calcium-rich foods and make exercise a part of their life throughout their life. Women also should see their doctor about a bone density test at menopause.

Author Lisa M. Sodders can be reached at  (785) 295-1189 or lsodders@cjonline.com. -Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.