For over twenty-two years, Dr. Hey has served children, adolescents and adults with scoliosis and other spinal deformities from across the Southeastern United States and beyond. Dr. Hey aspired to be a surgeon following his own experience as a trauma patient during his adolescent years. Dr. Hey studied engineering at MIT and then went on to Harvard Medical School. During his pediatric rotation at Boston Children's, Dr. Hey was inspired by Dr. John Hall and Dr. John Emans and others to help children and adults with spinal deformities. In 2005, after serving on faculty for Duke University Medical Center for nearly ten years, Dr. Hey founded the Hey Clinic for Scoliosis and Spinal deformities in Raleigh, NC.
How has your flexibility been? I know you lose a lot with a fusion, which really scares me. I have pretty bad adult degenerative scoliosis and am scheduled for a fusion in a month. I already had a lower lumber fusion 3 years ago, so I know what I'm in for. Thanks!
I won't be able to get the exact answer from this patient, since this video is years ago, the vast majority of patients have no significant flexibility or mobility issues after surgery. You can compensate well through hips and other spine levels not fused. In the adult, often the scoliotic and kyphotic regions have significant degeneration and facet arthritis which limits motion, and causes pain. While fusion decreases the motion, it may increase FUNCTION and FUNCTIONAL MOBILITY since there is less pain. Hope this helps. Best of luck with your surgery and a speedy recovery! Dr. Hey. We will try to get some more videos soon to address this question of flexibility. Over last couple of weeks I had one of my former AIS surgical patients shadowing me for a couple of days who is premed. She is an adolescent Indian dancer patient who had AIS surgery who has no trouble with mobility for her dancing internationally!! Will seek to get hers and other patient stories up there soon.
My back is better than ever, thanks to Dr Hey and his excellent team! My first major surgery was in 2012, T1 to pelvis with pelvic fixation. I had a second surgery to repair 4 broken rods one year ago in 2023. The recovery was rapid and perfect! You literally changed my life and I can't thank you enough. Today at age 65, I babysat my 7 month old granddaughter. I never would have been able to do that without Dr Hey giving me a titanium spine. Thank you! God bless you greatly, Dr Hey!
I'm still enjoying greater quality of life from my surgery nearly 9 years ago!! Thanks doc and staff-- I still pray thankfully for you and your patients periodically!
Sorry u waited so long for surgery. I had surgery when i was 13 years in 1971. Take care of yourself & keep your weight in check & be active. Welcome to a long life with a straight back. 💜🌻
Usually yes, but also consider trying conservative treatments first including Schroth therapy which can help with the pain, and can sometimes help the deformity.
I’m 4 months out from spinal fusion, there’s still some pain. Not as bad as before, but patients should be informed that the week or so after surgery is really painful. Make sure you have a loved one who can take care of you and your pets and other household stuff, because you’re going to not be able to do any of that for a while!
Dr.Hey is a good Christian man and a good DR and a good friend to he does care about his patients and he prays for his patients before he takes u in to surgery I've known him for a long time he has done several surgeries on me👍🙏🇺🇲
Was 10 in Elementary when I found out. I wish I could afford the surgery to fix my scoliosis. Now that I'm 20 it's so painful. Trying my best to figure out ways to help myself since I can get the surgery :(
What kind of surgery did he get? I’m 16 and have been thinking about a fusion for my grade 2 but I’ve heard that it’s pretty much definite I’ll get problems in the adjacent vertebrae in <10 years so I don’t know what to do.
Posterior instrumentation and fusion. It depends on level of symptoms / quality of life and conservative treatments tried. If quality of life not acceptable despite conservative treatments, then the surgical option could make sense. Yes, there are risks of adjacent level failure years down the line, bit it is not guaranteed that will happen, and it is also treatable. Happy to do a visit for you in person to discuss further. Look for an SRS.org surgeon near you for another opinion w your folks... There is hope!
This is GREAT!!! Thank you so much for posting this video! Hope that you're doing well and will continue to do so! I'm thinking I may have to have the surgery done, because in the last year, especially, I've been having SO much pain (it's scaring me, to be honest). I never really had pain, until up to this past year. In the past, my interest in having the surgery done was mostly for cosmetic reasons. I talked to two different surgeons while I was in my 20s and showed interest in having it done (again, it was mostly for cosmetic reasons then). Both said that they could do it, if that's something I wanted to do. But I chickened out, frankly, and obviously didn't do it. Now, though, after all these years, I think that I may have to have it done to help alleviate pain. I was wondering if there is an age limit to one having it done? Because now I'm 49-and-a-half years old and fearful that it may be too late for me to do it. If you could get back with me regarding this question/concern, I would greatly appreciate it!!
There is no age limit, but in general the curve will be more flexible when you're younger so you can get a better correction potentially with a less invasive surgery. The other benefit of earlier surgery is that the bone quality is usually better. Osteoporosis can be an issue in older adults which can potentially delay surgery to use bone strengthening medications, or in some cases may make surgery not an option, or a higher risk option. Don't forget the conservative treatments are also possible for kyphosis, including physiotherapeutic scoliosis exercises (PSSE), or Schroth therapy, combined with weight management or weight loss, and non-narcotic medications such as turmeric and NSAID's. Monitoring your curves over time can also be very helpful to see if you have progressive deformity. I'm glad this video was helpful. I do hope you get some relief! Feel free to reach out to our Clinic through our website if we could be a further help at heyclinic.com.
@@TheHeyClinic Thank you so much for your very informative response back to me! That was very kind and thoughtful, as I am sure you probably have questions frequently directed toward the Clinic and it takes time to respond back to everyone. It is my desire to be able to get rid of most of the pain, at least, and I hope that there is a treatment that could be beneficial to me in that regard. I have always been a lean individual (I could probably stand to lose about 10 lbs. right now and have begun calorie counting and cardio to do that), so weight management is in my favor. I also want to get back into strength training, which admittedly I haven't done in three years. But other than that, I have been someone who has been into fitness for years now (save the lack of weight lifting recently; I've done more exercise in my life post-30 than I ever did when I was younger). I've also always been a person who has eaten pretty healthfully. Maybe these combined elements will work to my benefit, if I have to pursue some form of back treatment -- I hope. Honestly, I feel great otherwise -- ready to take on the world, haha -- if it weren't for this back pain of late. But I want to thank you again so much for the reply back and for the very valuable information!!!
When someone get kyphosis corrective surgery. Does the instrumentation left in the body causes long term swelling? Or what is the average time for swelling? And how can patients reduce the swelling?
Usually instrumentation does not cause long-term swelling. Swelling may be there for first couple weeks. You should probably get it checked out with your surgeon if you have persistent swelling, to check for things like hardware pullout, infection, and other issues.
