When spinal stenosis is not just serious, it is soon fatal.

as time has gone on uh working at the post office and doing a lot of physical labor it's kind of given me some grief can we drill down on that a little bit what's the pain feel like um it's actually in my lower back in the lumbar area and if I when I stand up it runs down both legs my two big toes are normally uh numbing tingling my left calf tingles and is numb almost all the time um and sometimes when I'm bending forward I feel the pain actually in my lumbar area but it's real close to the surface of the skin so are you and how is this affecting your life you mentioned you're a postman are you married what do you do for fun well I'm married and um actually I retired from the military after 23 years and then I went to the post office and I also retired from there so now it's just um in my garage and around the 105 Acres we have you know clipping and raking and burning and and of course I can only do about 105.2 hours oh my God yeah that sounds like a lot of raking buddy that's where the chain link fence is at so it's not too bad but it does it uh aggravates it really bad and it can only last about an hour and a half to two hours and then I have to go in and sit down because it's just it's a tiring pain it's just like the energy is completely gone so oh yeah I mean pain just sucks like that it not only drains your energy I would say it pushes most people into feeling really depressed I mean it it causes all this sadness and all this and yucky stuff and are you getting a lot of that or you you kind of marching right through that Soldier I have the VA has been kind enough to help me out with that a little bit I'm on uh and then one called trazodone I take it at night to help me sleep because the movements will wake me up I can't sleep on my back I have to be on my right or left side if I go on my back then my legs start going numb you know and so yeah are you gonna deal with it so it's it's go ahead I noticed that we're gonna look at your Imaging in a second you have a CT scan and not an MRI are you do you have a pacemaker or some other device that prevents you from getting a yes I have a spinal stimulator SCS oh so the stimulator prevents you from getting an MRI right but the one that I sent you actually had was a myelogram so they injected right it looks great yeah yeah very helpful all right I'm if it's okay I'm gonna tip over to that and uh share it with you is that is that all right absolutely okay and uh for for people who haven't seen as many myograms as CT scans it's a CT scan that's done after the injection of dye into the spinal canal this is actually die up here this white that is uh showing where the width of the spinal canal is and I love myelograms because they show the spinal canal so well you can see all the spinal canal spinal canal and then right here there's a block in the die so it all the dye is coming down it makes the turn and then right there see how it stops yes so that's really severe narrowing and then down here at your L5 S1 is where you had the prior surgery yeah so you've got a myelographic block at the level of l45 it's a little bit subtle but this the back of if we follow the back of this is your five four three two this is lumbar two and if we follow the line of the back of it it points to the top of the next one now here's L3 if we follow the line it points to the top of the next one but if we follow this line it's actually shifted and I can tell that your l45 is unstable because it's trying to fuse itself all of this Ridge is bone that's trying to Bridge and just hasn't quite been able to so it's trying its hardest see all that none of the other levels have that so that's all space where it's trying trying I think I can I think I can but I can't so you've got severe stenosis and spondylolisthesis you're getting very significant neurological complaints with bilateral on both sides sciatica there's nothing but surgery that's going to help you now uh have you seen one other thing um there's two things that are going to the bathroom is an issue right now as well right I know it's not prostate because in my blood work the PSA is fine but the interruption of the flow it's like four or five times and I have to stand there and then it finally starts up again I mean it doesn't hurt or anything but the interruption is and if I'm not near the bathroom for number two uh it could be dicey so I have to I usually don't leave the house or go outside to work until I went to the bathroom in the morning yeah yeah it's affecting some other things so no doubt you're probably having trouble with sexual function as well the the nerves the nerves that oh that's good the nerves that go through there are not able to go through normally because of the stenosis and as that starts it's usually painful with pain down the legs then it starts when you walk then it starts to hurt when you stand then eventually you start getting bowel and bladder problems and in the long run that's fatal you end up getting a urinary tract infection you become bed bound and you die from it but we're not going to let that happen to you Jeffrey Stafford no no sir we need you here with us so you gotta you gotta get this dealt with and it's not a pill or an injection or an exercise or a therapy question because none of those make the the holes too small and none of those make the hole wider which is what you need it's a surgery question so you need to have surgery and then the issue becomes what surgery are you going to have I will tell you this for the last 10 years I've been seeing a pain doctor um it's been the radio frequency and then also injections they were good for a little while in the beginning and then it just comes back with a vengeance and now even when they do the injections and the um I've even had a like a couple of Toradol shots but it's only a temporary kind of taking the edge off so that's kind of what's been going on so the last 10 years plus uh company sent a thing out to my garage it's called converge so it's doing my own Physical Therapy you sit in the thing and you tension on it and then you try to build your core so we I've tried just about everything but it's exactly like you're saying when we were in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago when I came across your videos we went downtown to walk around and getting there was okay from the the hotel but coming back there's a lot of bus stops so I was able to take advantage of their benches and so it's to that point now even if I just stand in the bank to cash a check or it's just it's killer it's like I'm not even really physically doing anything and it's just it's it's tiring it's just it just wears me down yeah I mean I feel like you've gone too far with the injections I your pain doctor is going to pry open your casket and try to do an epidural you know like come on man it's done yeah the VA sent me to a neurosurgeon he was an El Paso I live in Deming New Mexico okay when I went to see him he's the one that suggested the myelogram so I got that done and now you have that but he did say to me he goes you know it's legal to smoke dope in your state though and he said that might help you with your pain and I don't know if he was just joking or you know what I mean but yeah it's so I've got the myelogram now and it's you're confirming what I feel physically yeah Jeffrey Stafford you need surgery there's there's it's just a no-brainer I don't you know I'm a minimally invasive I'm no longer an active surgeon I was disabled by Tremor but I'm a minimally invasive uh philosophy doctor and you don't need minimally invasive surgery you need a fusion that's going to do the same thing they did at l5s1 they need to extend up to l45 neurosurgeons uh are generally doc doctors there's Orthopedic spine surgeons and neurosurgeons are the spine surgeons those two groups of people it's very individual and you have to go by the individual what I would tell you is the orthopedic group tend to be a little more invasive and the Neurosurgical group tend to be a little less invasive having said that you find very invasive neurosurgeons and you find very non-invasive orthopedic surgeons so you got to look at the individual and not the degree on their wall you need someone who's really good at doing revision fusions okay and so if I was going to throw a dart and this is a former neurosurgeon talking if you told me hey you got to throw a dart at a blind board do you want a bunch of Ortho or a bunch of neuro I would tend toward the ortho because they tend to be a little better at Fusion on the other hand if you know of a good neurosurgeon who has a great reputation for doing spinal fusion then that's your person so you know you gotta make a decision you don't have time to jerk around with this anymore this has gone on way too long it's time to get it fixed who's been over six months now yeah come on man you you are uh you thank you for your service it's time for you to get back yeah you you are a vital member of this community of this country stop around with your back and get this thing fixed right right okay yeah I can tell the physical and the uh I didn't tell you this part of it you know I could elaborate forever but when I do when I'm out working doing what I try to get done around the house by the time I come in they're cramping in my legs is almost paralyzing I kid you not it almost makes me go down to the ground and my balance is even off now when I get up out of the chair to stand up or whatever it's like this is ridiculous so yeah this is ridiculous this is ridiculous come on that's enough yeah this is horrifying to me because you know look uh there's going to come a day where enough is enough and these nerves don't work anymore and they never come back so it's time uh it's been time it's we're in overtime let's let's get this thing fixed I agree so Deming you're right by El Paso if you want to get care in El Paso there's definitely good surgeons there if you start looking into it and you're not sure who to go to come back on the show give me a list of people you're interested in and I'll go through them and then we can compare nodes but Jeffrey Stafford these these surgeons are not sitting around waiting for you to show up they're busy right so we're gonna we're gonna have to we gotta get in we got you know pick out some names and call and make some appointments and then let's do our research and figure out who's the best and then when we get into that person we should tell them when you call the office you need to tell them I am losing bowel and bladder control due to spinal stenosis in my back say it back to me so I know you got it because it's a mouthful I'm I'm losing uh Bell and you're in control because of spinal stenosis in my back that was demonstrated by a myelogram I need a fusion does your doctor do those and can I get in quickly the gentleman that um the VA has sent me to they claim he's the best neurosurgeon in El Paso and his name is hen Bali so I don't know if you've heard of his name or but yes I will he's the one that suggested the myelogram and then to go back to him and I have an appointment with him how do you spell that 21st um h-a-n-b-a-l-i and Bali yes let's look at his website together okay and you know how the VA Works they're they're a little bit so they've been helpful don't get me wrong but yeah they're they're a little bit slow they are slow but they're steady I mean I was I was TR like almost every doctor in America we we do a lot of our training in in VA rotations and so I'm very familiar but um it's slow but it's steady uh is this the guy yes that's him okay neurosurgeon Providence neuroscience and Orthopedics Specialties procedures and conditions neurosurgery bypass craniotomy spinal fusion yeah I mean he's definitely doing everything which is usually not what I'm after okay um he may be great but uh guy like the guys who do cerebrovascular cerebral bypass and craniotomies that's a specialty and then spinal fusion that's a specialty gotcha I mean is he schizophrenic because he have multiple births he's doing multiple Specialties and it may be that in El Paso Dr Han Bali is the best we're gonna get and that I mean this guy could be the second coming he could be the best anywhere for all I know sure but in general uh surgeons get better with repetition and that's why the surgeons who are doing the same thing over and over um are the ones who give have the best probability of giving you a good result let's look at El Paso Spine Center now of course we don't know that they take VA so we have yeah that's that's kind of the key there too I'll be 64 this month and when I retired from the post office or I should put it this way when I signed up for Social Security I did not sign up for Part B because I was under the VA in Tricare with the military so it's like one more year and then I'll have Part B so I suppose I could go to anybody but their VA they give you suggestions and then you make an appointment and then so here we are well I just want to I I just want to show you something here so can you see my screen I sure can I mean so this guy the El Paso Spine Center he's a surgeon now he did pick a picture where his face was cut off so I wouldn't I may not go to him for web design but spondylolisthesis that's what you have stenosis that's what you have degenerative disc disease cassette disease every one of these is you you don't need a cerebral bypass like I like this guy because even though I can't see his face because every single thing on that list is what you need so he's specialized in what you do and his name is Dr Dean Smith he's an orthopedic surgeon okay I mean he strikes me as a good guy okay very good uh so I you know let's find out find out if then so that's the kind of guy look online find guys like that and get in and keep your appointment if make a follow-up with Dr with Dr um Fadi the the first guy who made you know who for all we know is going to be the right guy so keep that follow-up but try to get in see if the VA will cover a second opinion with one of these other spine guys and let's let's get in and see those guys absolutely listen I'm really worried about you I'm just not going to sugarcoat it it's time to get off here I'm worried about myself I know I don't think you'd be talking to me if you wouldn't you've you've had when I came across you I wrote in your thing I wrote um finally somebody that gets it and you read my handle is truth always so yeah oh I didn't know that was you yeah I wish you I wish you weren't retired because we actually were in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago we had come over there to buy a new car and there's nothing here in Deming we got like four stop lights so it's it's pretty small place but anyways yeah I'm in agreement with you this it's going on way long enough and you know it's like um it's definitely time this thing about going to the bathroom it worries me and uh so yeah I agree with you wholeheartedly and I'll definitely get with the VA on Monday and matter of fact I even still have a half a day today I could try to give them a call and let them know Jeffrey yeah sure get with them today all right all right aware that I can get a copy of this video that we're doing oh yeah I'll give you I'll send you a copy of this video and uh also a transcript it's automatically transcribed so that you can you can look at it and go over it and make sure you got you got the right message very good all right I wish you the best let me know what happens okay thank you for the uh for calling and doing the interview is great you got it have a good day you too thank you Doctor goodbye

Channel: Best Practice Health

Views: 49,089

Keywords: phoenix spine & joint, phoenix spine, spine surgery, hip replacement, knee replacement, knee surgery, spine fusion, best practice, best practice health, dr dan lieberman, dr lieberman, minimally invasive, surgery advice, herniated disk, herniated disc, meniscus tear, meniscal tear, anterior approach

Id: VU9vFXqPjoE

Length: 19min 3sec (1143 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 11 2023