Laser Spine Institute Is Now Closed. Here's Where To Go Instead
Monday, November 01, 2021
In March 2019, Laser Spine Institute unexpectedly announced that it would be shutting down operations due to a financial crisis. This news left the 1,500 present clinic patients utterly dumbfounded and confused about the future of their healthcare.
Laser Spine Institute was one of the pioneer clinics to introduce minimally invasive laser spine surgery to the general public. Many patients were concerned about having to fall back to the more invasive and potentially risky surgeries. However, hope is not lost, Deuk Spine Institute is now the global leader in Laser Spine Surgery and has been performing minimally invasive spine procedures to thousands of patients and curing their back, neck, and thoracic pain for good. See how Deuk Laser Disc Repair works.
What happened to Laser Spine Institute? Why did it close?
The Laser Spine Institute was established in 2005 with the goal of providing an alternative to standard surgery for individuals suffering from neck and back problems. The practice began with three surgeons, nine assistants, and a single operating room.
The company expanded into Arizona, Philadelphia, and Oklahoma City two years later. They did, however, run into legal issues.
Terry Bollea, a professional wrestler, popularly known as Hulk Hogan, sued Laser Spine Institute in 2013 for executing a series of failed surgeries that cost him $50 million in medical expenditures and missed engagements. In 2018, the clinic was hit with a slew of legal issues, including a $264 million judgment for breach of fiduciary responsibility, conspiracy, defamation, slander, tortious interference, and violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. In the same year, a Pennsylvania judge ordered the institute to pay $20 million to the estate of an Ohio patient who sued the facility post-humously in 2014.
Over its 14 years run, Laser Spine Institute paid out almost half a billion dollars in damages and compensation after multiple lawsuits were filed against the company. For a company recording an average of $220 million in revenue in 2017- just a fraction of the costs it was incurring- the situation was bound to end tragically.
On March 6, 2019, the CEO of Laser Spine Institute, Jake Brace, released an official statement announcing the immediate closure of the clinic and all its facilities. The jarring closure left more than 500 employees without a living and 1,500 patients looking for urgent medical solutions.
Alternatives to Laser Spine Institute
It has been more than two years since Laser Spine Institute closed its doors for the last time. Yet, many patients are still in the dark on alternative facilities to undergo safe and reliable minimally invasive surgeries to heal their spinal ailments.
If you are one of those people, the good news is Deuk Spine Institute is readily available to help you achieve lasting pain relief.
At Deuk Spine Institute, our dedicated team of physicians specializes in a minimally-invasive laser surgery procedure called Deuk Laser Disc Repair that cures herniated and bulging discs causing back, neck and thoracic pain. See how Deuk Laser Disc Repair works.
Suffering from back pain? We know exactly where that pain is coming from and how to fix it.
Suffering from neck pain? We know exactly where that pain is coming from and how to fix it.
With world-class physicians on staff, the newest and most advanced technology, and a patient experience pathway unrivaled in its efficiency and pedagogy of care, Deuk Spine Institute has performed thousands of procedures and achieves a 95% success rate in the elimination of spine pain.
Our services are not offered anywhere else globally, and the treatments are curative, not palliative. On top of that, Dr. Deukmedjian is personally invested in the well-being of each patient and has spared no expense to guarantee the best possible outcomes.
We accept patients with any insurance, including worker’s compensation, personal injury, auto accidents, and those with no insurance or minimal coverage. Your insurance provider may not readily pay for some services provided by the Deuk Spine Institute. Still, we are willing to help steer you in the right direction towards effective, affordable treatment.
The Benefits of Laser Spine Surgery
Laser spine surgery is less invasive than traditional back surgery.
- It can usually be done as an outpatient procedure with the patient sedated under twilight anesthesia.
- Due to its nature as a minimally invasive procedure, laser spine surgery does not require any hospital stay.
- The operation results in virtually no bleeding or scarring.
- It also lowers the levels of postoperative complications and pain.
- These factors contribute to ensuring patients have a faster recovery time as the period required for rehabilitation is significantly shorter than in traditional back surgery.
Deuk Laser Disc Repair is a laser spine surgery performed to cure back pain or neck pain associated with herniated discs, bulging discs, annular tears, sciatica, spinal stenosis, pinched nerves, and other conditions that cause chronic spine pain. Traumatic injuries to the disc can cause annular tears to form. The inflamed annular tear causes back pain or neck pain. Inflammation of the surrounding nerve roots can cause leg or arm pain.
To cure pain with Deuk Laser Disc Repair, a bandaid-sized skin incision is made. A small tube is inserted without damaging the bone or soft tissues. The laser removes the herniation and debrides the annular tear. The annular tear then heals on its own.
If you have a herniated or bulging disc or chronic back or neck pain, submit your MRI for a free review.
Common Spine Conditions Treated By Laser Spine Surgery
The following are some of the most common spine problems that can be treated using laser spine surgery;
1. Bulging/Slipped Disc:
Bulging disc occurs when the disc —a soft tissue sac — between the vertebrae bones of the spine ruptures or shifts outside of the area it should be in. Also called a ruptured or slipped disc, this problem can occur in the neck or thoracic area, but is most common in the lower back, called the lumbar region.
The most common symptom of a bulging disc is back or neck pain. Other symptoms often include numbness and tingling in the parts of arms or legs that lie on the path of the affected nerve roots, weakness in the limb muscles, and pain that originates in the spine and travels into the arms or legs. In extreme cases, patients might experience difficulty controlling bladder actions.
2. Herniated Disc
Herniated discs can easily be repaired with laser spine surgery at Deuk Spine Institute using state-of-the-art minimally invasive endoscopic techniques. The Deuk Laser Disc Repair is the only proven, peer-reviewed, and published surgery that uniquely treats the painful inflamed annular tear that is the source of back or neck pain coming from a herniated disc. Dr. Ara Deukmedjian MD, a board-certified neurosurgeon, discovered through his endoscopic technique that back and neck pain could be cured when the posterior annular tear of the painful herniated disc(s) was debrided with a medical laser. No other spine surgeon has this technology which is why patients treated elsewhere continue to have back or neck pain long after their spine surgery is over. Herniated discs are the most common by far cause of back or neck pain. We call pain originating in a damaged disc “discogenic” pain.
3. Degenerative Disc Disease:
Degenerative Disc Disease involves a variety of structural, biochemical, nutritional, and molecular changes that occur in the spinal disc over time or following an initial injury to the intervertebral spinal disc in your spine. Degenerative disc disease is a common cause of back pain and neck pain (discogenic pain), sciatica, and radiculopathy. The pain in your back from degenerative disc disease comes from irritated (inflamed) nerve fibers within the nearby annular tear.
4. Spinal Stenosis:
Spinal stenosis occurs when the spinal canal or neural foramen narrows and puts pressure on the important spinal nerves. Spinal stenosis is called thoracic stenosis when it occurs in the middle to upper part of the back, cervical stenosis when it occurs in the neck area, and lumbar stenosis in the lower back area. Narrowing can happen for several reasons, the most common being herniated discs and other causes such as ligaments and cartilage thickening in the canal, or excessive bone growth simply causing the opening to become more slender over time. The risk of this problem increases as a patient passes 50 years of age, due in part to years of stress on the spine and the tendency of tissue and bone to become less sturdy or flexible with decades of repeated use. Disc disease or spinal injury may also be contributing factors in stenosis of the spine, in patients of any age.
Symptoms of Spinal stenosis vary depending on what region of the spine is affected. Patients who develop stenosis in the cervical spine will likely experience symptoms in the neck, shoulders, or arms. If the spinal stenosis has occurred in the lower back or lumbar area of the spine, these symptoms will be felt in the back, legs, hips, or feet. The general symptoms of spinal stenosis include; Numbness or tingling, Weakness, Radicular pain, difficulty in walking and maintaining balance, and potential problems controlling urine or bowel movements in extreme cases. The majority of diagnosed cases of spinal stenosis are recorded in the most mobile regions of the lumbar spine.
The Best Center for Laser Spine Surgery
Deuk Spine Institute is the only clinic that offers the FDA-approved, peer-reviewed Deuk Laser Disc Repair surgery. We have a unique goal when we perform Deuk Laser Disc Repair: Instead of removing an entire disc and placing cages, screws, and rods along the spine, our unique laser spine surgery creates an opportunity for the disc to heal naturally on its own.
- To repair your disc, we don’t remove normal bone or joints as is done in traditional spine surgery such as microdiscectomy, laminectomy or fusion. Traditional spine surgery using bone and joint destroying techniques, weakens and destabilizes the spine, which leads to future complications that may require fusion surgery.
- We don’t go through your stomach to reach your back, as is done with total disc replacement surgery for back pain.
- Deuk Laser Disc Repair doesn’t compromise the spine’s stability, making it the only laser spine surgery of its kind. Instead, we use a patented endoscopic technique that gently and temporarily pushes aside normal tissue to reach the painful herniation.
Once the herniation has been treated, the spinal disc and your body can heal naturally. Inflammation around the spine decreases, and neurological symptoms from nerve root irritation subside. In time, the disc functions as it did before injury and herniation.
Here is an animation detailing our innovative laser spine procedure
Get a Free MRI Review
If you are suffering from back or neck pain, send us your MRI scan for a free review or schedule an in-person appointment at our clinic in Florida to learn more.
