Disc replacement procedure can help relieve neck, back pain

(KPLC) - Suffering from a stiff neck? How about sore shoulders? It may be caused by more than just the stress of the day.

About 25 percent of people under the age of 40, and 60 percent of people over the age of 40, have some degree of degenerative disk disease. For most people, physical therapy will do the trick, but for some, a disk fusion was all doctors had to offer, until now.

Clayton Slater took up disc golf to give him and his son something to do, but pain stopped him from going out on the course.

“I had pain in the shoulders that radiated down my tricep into my arm and my hand,” he said.

The pain was actually a result of a neck injury that happened when Slater fell off a treadmill.

Patients with problems in their cervical disks — the seven disks that run from the base of the skull to the top of the shoulders — have few options. Most are treated with anti-inflammatories and physical therapy, then offered disk fusion.

“The problem is that it creates a domino effect, so, someone gets their neck fused for one or two levels, that then puts pressure, potentially, on the adjacent level,” orthopedic surgeon Dr. Kern Singh said.

Now, disk replacement is giving patients a more mobile option.

“This is the actual disk replacement device that we, or myself, I implant in patients. And you can see, it’s less than the size of your fingertip,” Singh said.

It’s made out of titanium and plastic.

“So, bone grows into the titanium and the plastic, basically, acts like a shock absorber and the disk allows the spine to physically move forward, and then back, side to side, and then rotation,” Singh said.

The surgery takes only 30 minutes. Slater went home the same day and could move his neck immediately.

“I’m able to do full range of motion everywhere,” he said five months later.

Cervical disk replacements are approved by the FDA. Dr. Singh said data shows that artificial cervical disks should not need to be replaced for at least 20 years.

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