Straight talk about pain, your spine surgery options, and the evolution of disc replacement.
This straight forward explanation (in basic English) of your spine and why it hurts will help you understand what is going on and what you can do about it.

To understand your spine problems you first must understand the structure itself. Your spine is designed like the golden gate bridge, it has cables (ligaments and muscles) holding it up, joints (facets) to allow it to move, and a hard roadway (vertebrae) to handle the load. When more weight is put on the bridge the cables hold it up and the whole thing flexes. This is how the spine works for most mammals, a brilliant design!

Now stand the bridge on end…not so well designed now?

Now that we have stood the whole thing upright we have some issues and you begin to understand why back and neck pain are so common.

Now let’s look at it as a stack of blocks (vertebrae), with support cables (ligaments and muscles) only on one side (the back side) and balloons full of jelly (discs) now having to support the weight. This vertical position was not what was intended with the original design.

Ever blow up a balloon? Well the first time you try it is difficult, then as it stretches it gets easier as the walls get weaker. This is what happens to your discs.
As you go through life you lift weight, jump and move, each time stretching out the balloons. They begin to get stressed and weak. They push outward (bulging disc or herniation) and the blocks (vertebrae) get closer to each other. Another problem is that the nerves that exit the spinal cord go between these blocks at each disc. As the discs get squished down the blocks start to pinch these nerves.Now you get it!

Now some people call this degenerative disc disease. Well I suppose that’s OK, if you call wrinkles degenerative skin disease. Yes we will all get wrinkles if we live long enough, some sooner than others. The same is true for disc degeneration. All your discs are wearing out, some sooner than others. Now the words used to describe this process vary and can be confusing,
Degenerative disc disease = the natural process of disc wear.
Stenosis = the narrowing caused by the disc entering the nerve exit canal (foraminal stenosis) or entering the central spinal cord canal (spinal stenosis). This is also caused by the vertebrae getting closer to each other (narrowing the opening).
Disc herniation = the balloon (disc) is pushing out.
Annular Tear = a tear in the disc wall or annulus.
Narrowing or loss of disc height = the disc is not holding the vertebrae apart as it should.
Spondylo or retro listhesis = listhesis is the blocks getting out of alignment.
Spondylo means the top vertebrae is pushing forward over the lower one. Retro means it is pushing towards the back.

So why the pain? There are several sources of back and neck pain caused by this process.
Disc pain; the discs have nerves in them and as they are destroyed they hurt. This is the deep pain inside your back right in the middle.
Nerve pain; this is caused as the disc or material from the disc touches or aggravates the nerves as they pass by. Disc bulges, herniations, or tears in the disc can cause this. This also can cause nerve inflammation.
Radiating(radicular) pain; pain down your arms or legs. This is also caused by the disc or the vertebrae itself touching or pinching the nerves.
Joint (facet) pain; as the disc begins to fail at keeping the blocks apart the flex joints start to rub in an unnatural way, they get inflamed and can cause pain. This pain is near the surface, off center, and can spasm the muscles in the area causing more pain and tightness.

Determining the source of the pain can be critical in relieving it. If you use the guide above you may be able to determine the source of your pain. If the pain is muscle the treatment of choice is heat. If it is facet wear or any inflammation the use of ice and anti-inflammatory agents are key. These techniques reduce the pain by actually reducing the inflammation, they can also help to reduce the damage being done by the inflammation process. This process is often referred to as arthritis or facet arthrosis.
After many years of ibuprophen (the most common anti-inflammatory) use my stomach and esophagus are so damaged I now use natural anti-inflammatory supplements. To get natural anti-inflammatory relief for back, neck, arthritis or any joint related pain you need Glucosamine and Chondroitin, add MSM, Boswellin, Curcumin, and Bromelain. and you have some serious anti-inflammatory medicine.
Look for Joint Xtra-Max(TM), Maximum Joint Support in my pain relief store.
I take this for back and joint pain. If I don’t take this each day I can feel the pain come back in one day.
Bad pain? Use New Chapter's patented Zyflamend® with baicalein and baicalin,
and Vital Nutrients Green Tea Extract with Catechin for reduced inflamation.
These are the over the counter components in perscription Limbrel.
To save on your pain relief products, go to the pain relief store now Click Here

If the pain is disc or nerve radiating pain the only answer may be analgesics or narcotics. These actually reduce the body’s ability to feel pain. Start with Tylenol and escalate from there under your doctor’s supervision. Of course you likely will have a mixture of all these symptoms and will need to attack from all sides. Anti-inflammatory pain relief and narcotics can be used together.
Injections can also be used to relieve pain or reduce inflammation.

OK, if pain relief using drugs and supplements is not doing the job you may be considering surgical options. Let’s break them down.

Surgical Options
The first surgical option that your doctors will consider is surgery to remove the part of the disc that is sticking out or carve out the vertebrae bone to make more room for the nerves. These procedures are called Disc-ectomy (removal or some of the disc) Lamin-ectomy (removal of some of the bone). Often lasers are used to do the removal which is why this is often called Laser Surgery. It’s the same thing, just using a laser scalpel. These removal procedures are targeted at relieving the pain and do not address the problem, the bad disc. They may provide temporary relief , but the bridge is still coming down!
Almost always further pain and surgery is required at some point in the near future.

Another option popular in the US (not so popular in non FDA controlled countries) is Spinal Fusion, sometimes called disc replacement, plif, tlif, or other fancy names to fool unsuspecting victims. Regarless of what they call it, this process welds the vertebrae together, eliminating movement and transferring the motion to adjacent discs. These adjacent discs will begin an accelerated degeneration process leading to more pain and surgery down the road.

Back in the 1980s another solution was being developed in Europe called Disc Arthroplasty or Disc Replacement. These implants use a "ball in socket" design like a hip or knee replacement. One of the leading centers for this development was the Charite Hospital in Berlin Germany. The product they developed was called the Charite Disc. As the product evolved and was studied it was determined that a significant number of implants were migrating either into the vertebrae or out of the spine. This was a major issue since going back in to fix this problem presented significant risk to the patient.
During the 1990s efforts were underway to eliminate this implant migration problem. The first attempt was the ProDisc Implant. This design proved to have the same issues as the early Charite design, but also remains on the market.
Caution: these "ball in socket" implants are still on the market and some un-informed surgeons are still using them.

Then along came the breakthrough we were hoping for! The Maverick Disc had an improved plate attachment system and a center of rotation pushed towards the back. This implant all but eliminated implant migration, had great results, and was used for many years outside the US, where FDA delays prevented its release.
Well, now that plate fixation had been solved with Maverick we still had other concerns with these products. Although the early implants did the discs job of keeping the blocks apart, and allowed movement, relieving the adjacent discs from taking on too much work, there were problems. These "ball in socket" designs allowed too much motion and were hard, leading to impact injuries.
Unfortunately, in 2009 the Maverick implant was removed from the world market due to a patent dispute.

What Now?
Patients with these early ball-in-socket implants (like me) were experiencing facet joint wear and pain from excessive and uncontrolled motion, and others were suffering impact injuries to adjacent discs due to falls and accidents. This was not looking good.

Then along came the solution, a start-up company in Sunnyvale California had reverse engineered the human disc! By testing and computer modeling the natural human disc in action, then developing an implant that replicated these characteristics, they had developed a better disc replacement implant. Using the discoveries of the past about plate fixation, and materials used in other successful soft tissue human implants, they designed the implant we have been waiting for, The Spinal Kinetics M6 disc.

This implant is the first “Artificial Disc” to truly deserve the title. The M6 provides a natural “Quality of Motion” not found in first generation non-compressible Disc Replacement implants. The M6 Disc goes beyond these early designs to provide shock absorption and graded variable resistance to motion, like a healthy disc. This natural motion will protect against future complications like adjacent disc injury or degeneration and facet joint wear.

M6 for the Neck; In 2006 Dr. Karsten Ritter-Lang in Germany became one of the first to offer the M6 disc for the Cervical spine and has had outstanding results.

M6 for the Back; In February 2009 Leading spine surgeon Dr. Karsten Ritter-Lang, M.D. announced the successful implantation of the first patient with the Spinal Kinetics M6-L artificial lumbar disc, and the commencement of the system's initial commercial launch in Europe.

In October 2009 Dr. Karsten Ritter-Lang announced the successful rollout of the first international patients to receive the Spinal Kinetics M6-L artificial lumbar disc, and the commencement of the implants full availability at the clinic. Four American patients received M6-L implants, one single level, two double level, and one three level intervention, 8 total implants. All patients are doing well and more are heading to Germany to get the M6 each week.

"The ability to replicate the motion characteristics of a natural disc with a prosthesis designed like the M6 disc is a major advancement in technology that will benefit the long term outcomes of an artificial disc patient," states Dr. Ritter-Lang, Spine Surgeon, "We were pleased with the simplicity of implantation with this implant, surgical time was reduced, as was blood loss with the M6."

Now patients from all over the world have a truly effective option for degenerated discs and all the pain and suffering they can cause.
If this was helpful click here and read my Better Life Works page on other life changing discoveries. and read, Jim's disc replacement story, about my trip to Germany.

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Jim is now the US Spokesperson for Dr. Karsten Ritter-Lang
Call him toll free at 866-544-8252, pacific time.
> or contact Jim at jim@rideoneinc.com

Click here to begin your Evaluation process for Disc Replacement.

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