Summary
An army veteran from Phoenix, Arizona had been battling chronic lower back pain for decades — sustaining the original injury during his military service and enduring a discectomy in 2008, two spinal stimulator procedures in 2013 and 2016, medial branch blocks, bilateral RFA, and numerous epidurals, all with little lasting relief. By early 2023, his condition had worsened to the point where he could barely walk 50 feet due to severe leg weakness and shooting back pain. After discovering Deuk Spine Institute on YouTube and engaging with Dr. Deukmedjian extensively online before his visit, he traveled to have the Deuk Laser Disc RepairⓇ performed. Less than 24 hours after his outpatient procedure, he was completely pain-free, had taken only a single muscle relaxer, and was so energized that his wife had to remind him to take it easy.
Transcript:
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: It is a great day. I actually had an opportunity to meet one of my fans on YouTube who has been following our surgeries for a long time and asked incredibly intelligent and insightful questions about spine care. He made the decision to come here with his wife from Phoenix to actually get his back fixed the right way. I’ll let him tell you a little bit about it. Do you mind sharing your story about your lower back?
Patient: Not at all. I mean, it’s a long story, but no, I don’t mind. Originally, I’m an army veteran — originally hurt my back in the army, continued to herniate and herniate and have disc treatments. I had a discectomy in 2008, hard tissue built up after that, then went to a spinal stimulator in 2013, went to another spinal stimulator in 2016. I’ve had every lower back lumbar procedure you could think of. I’ve had medial branch blocks. I’ve had an RFA, bilateral RFA. I’ve had all sorts of treatments — epidurals. No, I’m here, right? It was constantly hurting to the point where this last year, since the start of 2023, I was starting to get bad leg weakness, the shooting pains in my lower back. I couldn’t walk for more than 50 feet anymore. And I’m like — I just turned 50 last week. This is gonna be a problem for a number of years more. So I had to find something that was gonna solve the source of the pain and not just treat the symptoms, because there’s nothing left to treat the symptoms besides a fusion.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: And you were skeptical because you’ve been through so much treatment. None of it really worked, but you found our site. You engaged with me many times on the internet while I’m operating.
Patient: Right, absolutely. Which made the pre-op appointment go so quick though, because I’d asked all my questions. So that helped.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: It definitely helped. So what made you decide to come to Deuk Spine Institute?
Patient: Just so I can annoy everybody around me again — because I’m no longer gonna be in pain. Like really, I can do things with my family again. So that’s really good.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: Yes, you can. So you had your surgery done yesterday, less than 24 hours ago. Here you are, pain-free.
Patient: Yes.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: Did you expect that?
Patient: I’ve seen other testimonials, so I knew it was possible, right? But I’m like, no, there’s no way. Oh yeah — pain-free.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: Do we have you on morphine and oxycodone and any pain medications?
Patient: You gave me the Robaxin — I took one. And that was last night before I went to bed. And no, nothing else.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: Robaxin’s a muscle relaxer, lasts six hours. So it’s already out of your system. So no pain meds.
Patient: No.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: You’re here walking around — outpatient surgery.
Patient: Yes, yeah.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: Done with a little cut on your back. You can actually watch it here. You can see some footage of where we went in with a tiny little incision, brought the endoscope in, we brought the laser in, and we cleaned out those tears where the herniation was — where all your inflammation was. You can even see a little bit of pink tissue in there, inflammatory tissue. That’s where all the little nerve fibers are that cause so much pain in the back of the disc. We got rid of it all, and that pain is gonna be gone permanently.
Patient: I’m looking forward to it.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: Anything you want to tell your fans out there?
Patient: Just — I’m just happy to be, really, I am pain-free. Like, I’m annoying my wife, because I have limitations, obviously. I’m not supposed to lift and all that. But I have no pain, so I’m literally bouncing off the walls now, which of course everyone has cautioned me not to do. But really, that’s it. It’s like, I’m excited. Winter’s coming, things to do. I’m not gonna be suffering as much. No, I won’t be suffering from the cold anymore. I won’t be one of those — like, oh, it’s gonna be cold outside, I can’t move. I’m happy just to think about that, so yeah.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: Obviously you can tell from his energy level he’s not the kind of person to take it easy. But I know he’s gonna follow the instructions. His back will heal beautifully. I do want to point out one last thing — if you go back to the video footage, you can actually see he wrote on his back, like, “have a great day” right?
Patient: Yeah, “make it a great day” — yeah, with a big smiley face.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: Make it a great day with a big smiley face. So he’s the first patient that did that, and it really put a smile on all of our faces while we were operating. So thank you very much.
Patient: Yeah, absolutely. Appreciate it. Really, thank you very much. And your involvement.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: You’re welcome. Enjoy life.
Patient: I will.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: All right, let’s get you guys out of here. You’ve got better things to do.
The Better Way: Deuk Laser Disc RepairⓇ (DLDR)
This patient underwent the Deuk Laser Disc RepairⓇ at Deuk Spine Institute for chronic lumbar disc herniations with significant annular tears and inflammatory tissue a condition that had persisted for decades and failed to respond to a discectomy, two spinal stimulators, medial branch blocks, bilateral RFA, and multiple epidural injections. Using a minimally invasive endoscopic approach and laser, Dr. Ara Deuk removed the inflammatory tissue and repaired the source of the patient’s pain in an outpatient setting — with no hospitalization, no narcotic pain medication, and complete pain relief achieved within 24 hours of the procedure. Learn more about the Deuk Laser Disc Repair (DLDR)Ⓡ and how it treats the root cause of back pain when all other options have been exhausted.