Summary
A 48-year-old reconstructive dentist had been living with debilitating back pain and neuropathy for years. Including a prior microdiscectomy that resolved his sciatica but left his chronic back pain completely untreated, with his doctor simply recommending physical therapy. The pain became so severe he was forced to sell both of his dental practices, ending 25 years of a career he loved. After undergoing the Deuk Laser Disc Repair®, he woke up the next morning smiling at his wife for the first time in years. With no back pain and discovered in the recovery room that 90 to 95% of the foot neuropathy he had attributed to a prior Achilles surgery was also gone, moving him to tears. With at least 20 more years of dentistry ahead of him, he left Deuk Spine Institute determined to tell every colleague he knows about the procedure.
Transcript
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: Good morning. I’m Dr. Deukmedjian and I’m here with one of my patients who happens to be a dentist specializing in reconstructive surgery. He had the Deuk Laser Disc Repair® done for back pain that he’s had for years. He’s also had surgery in his back. He had a microdiscectomy done years ago. The microdiscectomy helped with his leg symptoms. He had sciatica and maybe some weakness and numbness. The microdiscectomy helped with that, but it didn’t help with the back pain. And what did your doctor tell you about your back pain? Could they fix your back pain?
Patient: He just told me to do physical therapy.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: Before I ask you how you’re feeling today, I want to talk about teeth — because there’s an interesting parallel between back pain and teeth. Now, there are what? 32 teeth?
Patient: Yes, sir. 32 teeth in your mouth. We hope so.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: Yeah. Normally, when you go to the dentist with some pain in your tooth, you don’t really know which tooth is hurting you. You just know that you have pain in your mouth. This is very important because back pain is a lot like pain in the mouth or teeth pain. The dentist has to use a combination of diagnostic imaging. We call them X-rays usually and then they combine that with an examination where they go in and have you open your mouth and they kind of poke in different teeth and different areas to figure out where the source of pain is. Now, the most common cause of teeth pain is a cavity, right?
Patient: Mostly. Yes.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: Yeah. So if I go to a dentist, it’s most likely just based on numbers that my problem is a cavity. It also turns out that when people come in with back pain, the most common cause is a disc problem. How do you feel now that you’ve had the Deuk Laser Disc Repair®?
Patient: So I woke up this morning. Usually when I get out of bed there’s that intense back pain and I’m going, “Well, that’s probably about as good as today is going to be.” And this morning when I got up, I looked at my wife and she was like, “Why are you smiling?” And I was like, “Because I don’t have that pain anymore.” And I also had an Achilles repair done in ’22, and I had neuropathy that I thought was from that surgery. Literally coming out of surgery yesterday, I looked at my wife and actually started crying because the pain in my left foot was all but gone. Literally right after surgery. And that wasn’t something I was expecting. Dr. Deuk said, “Yeah, we’ll probably fix a little bit of that, but probably not all of it.” I would say 90 to 95% of that pain in that left foot is gone. And I’m not a very emotional guy, so for that to make me emotional. My wife, it was kind of something pretty special. And so did I. Just an amazing, amazing result.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: But you’ve also been suffering with this back and leg problem for years, and it was crippling to your life, right? I mean, it basically ruined your career.
Patient: I had two practices. I had to sell both of them. By the time I would get to where I needed to be, I was too busy and I couldn’t work with that level of pain and treat the pain at the same time. So I ended up having to sell both practices. It affected my ability to treat patients and do what I’ve been loving to do for the last 25 years. I’m only 48 years old, but I feel like I still have at least another 20 years in me.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: Well, congratulations on fixing your back here at Deuk Spine Institute. Is there anything you want to say to your fans out there?
Patient: Sure. I’ve got a lot of colleagues out there. Unfortunately, I’ve lost colleagues to back pain. It’s very real in the field of dentistry. And so if you’re out there and you’re looking at this, my name and information will be out on Facebook eventually because I’m going to tell everybody I know that it’s worth coming here. It’ll change your life.
Dr. Ara Deukmedjian: Congratulations, doctor.
Patient: Thank you, my friend. Go enjoy life. Okay. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you guys.
The Deuk Laser Disc Repair Difference
This patient underwent the Deuk Laser Disc Repair® at Deuk Spine Institute for chronic lower back pain that had persisted despite a prior microdiscectomy; which resolved his sciatica but left his discogenic back pain and progressive foot neuropathy entirely untreated. The Deuk Laser Disc Repair® uses a minimally invasive laser endoscopic approach to precisely identify and treat the annular tears and disc damage causing back pain. Addressing the root cause rather than only the radiating leg symptoms that a microdiscectomy targets. No hospitalization was required, no narcotic pain medication was needed, and the patient experienced immediate relief from both his back pain and 90 to 95% of his longstanding foot neuropathy within hours of the outpatient procedure. As Dr. Deukmedjian explains, diagnosing and treating back pain requires the same precise, source-specific approach a dentist uses to identify which tooth is causing pain and the Deuk Laser Disc Repair® treats only what needs treating, nothing more and nothing less. Patients can begin with a complimentary MRI review and virtual consultation with Dr. Deukmedjian at Deuk Spine Institute.