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Microspine Center, Florida

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  • Microspine Center, Florida

    Has anyone heard of this center? Or the doctors - Dr. Anthony Mork, Dr. Craig Wolff and Dr. Scott Haufe? They do Laser Endoscopic Surgery. Sounds very interesting. Any experiences to report?

  • #2
    microspine failure

    I am a victim of Microspine and Dr. Mork. I went in with minor problems. Due to his leaving bone fragments in, I suffered an 8 mm (about 1/2 inch) tear to the dura or thecal sac, and severely leaked spinal fluids. The failures of this clinic left me with partial paralysis and largly contributed to my divorce. I am, and may always be, a chronic pain patient. In addition to the great work of microspine, they have had the audacity to send me to collections for not paying for the two additional surgeries it took to correct his mistake (I paid for the first surgery in cash up front). If I could do it all again, I would run as fast as I could away from Microspine or Dr. Mork. btw...they keep you sedated but awake during the surgery so you can feel the drilling in your back, and Mork isn't even nice about it. If you say ouch, you will get "don't say ouch, tell me where it hurts! is it the same pain or is it different?" The guy is nuts.

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    • #3
      I am a success story for MicroSpine

      I feel for the other forum person who had a poor result at Microspine but for me, the results were wonderful. I had severe spinal stenosis at the L4-5 level due to a spondilolisthesis and everyone else wanted to fuse me. I underwent the surgery with Dr. Mork and the results have been what I wanted. Dr. Mork was unfront with me that his surgery helps most but not everyone, but I guess this is true for most back surgery. I did check the web about him and most of the comments were good. This is versus some docs where most of the comments were bad for a similar surgery. I would be happy to elude on my experience if anyone wants to know.

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      • #4
        How did you research Dr. Mork? I have same problem and am considering Microspine.

        Originally posted by johnmills
        I feel for the other forum person who had a poor result at Microspine but for me, the results were wonderful. I had severe spinal stenosis at the L4-5 level due to a spondilolisthesis and everyone else wanted to fuse me. I underwent the surgery with Dr. Mork and the results have been what I wanted. Dr. Mork was unfront with me that his surgery helps most but not everyone, but I guess this is true for most back surgery. I did check the web about him and most of the comments were good. This is versus some docs where most of the comments were bad for a similar surgery. I would be happy to elude on my experience if anyone wants to know.
        I am considering Microspine and would like to hear more about your experience.

        Comment


        • #5
          Micro-Spne

          I have heard of Micro-Spine. I was thinking about having surgery with them. I was in a car wreck 3 months ago. I was left with 2 bulging disk in my neck and 1 in my low back. I work construction and lost my job because of the wreck. I have no medical insurance only 25,000 on my car insurance. Micro-Spine would not take me as a patient because I could not pay 15,000 in cash up front. BEFORE the Dr. even seen my or my films!!! They want me to pay for a sugery I might not even need before I even see the DR. I told them I would pay the 450.00 for the consultation and 2000.00 for the test up front. But they want that and the 15000.00 for surgery. That is not right!!

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          • #6
            Dear Dennis and wildthing,
            I heard of microspine through my friend in Texarkana. He went there and had good results. I was in the position of needing a fusion and I didn't want one because of the problems that I have heard. I wasn't enthralled with paying above my insurance but I was very happy that I did. I am realizing that there are alot of people who get regular surgery and are worse off then before. there are alot of these folks at microspine. I am not that bad, just leg pain. But I can see why the georgia lady could be unhappy because to many people, these guys are their last resort. I was only there for a few days but almost everyone was very happy although I will say several of the people seems a little nutty to me. Maybe the pain was making them nuts.

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            • #7
              Dr. Mork almost killed me

              I had lumbar surgery by Dr. Anthony Mork in 2003, a laser-assisted discectomy. Even though the surgery made my back and leg pain better, shortly thereafter I developed a severe post-operative infection which required 6 weeks of IV antibiotics, oral antibiotics, sleeping in a recliner for a year because I couldn't lay down from all the pain, a back brace which I wore for 24 hours a day, and a four-wheeled walker. I cannot express how much pain I was in. I contacted Dr. Mork about the infection and was told that it never happened before with any of his patients. I don't believe him. Any doctor that has done 5,000 surgeries in 5 years, which Dr. Mork claims, is bound to have several patients who develop post-operative infections. Even though I respected Dr. Mork at the beginning of this process, I have lost all respect for him and would never recommend him to anybody. By the way, my L5-S1 disc dissolved due to the infection, and those two vertebrae fused on their own. I am doing a lot better now, can lay flat to sleep, no more walker or cane, and am stronger. But I will never forget the hell that I went through because of Dr. Mork.

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              • #8
                Leah,
                First let me state that in no way am I defending either Dr. Mork or Microspine.

                Whenever you have any surgery of any kind you risk infection. I had A/P surgery (T4-S1) at 56 yrs at UCSF. I developed a staph infection that required IV antibiotics for months. Instead of just 2 surgeries 1 week apart I ended up with a total of 6 surgeries in 8 months. In the end I had to have my hardware removed to get all of the infection out. It was a horrific year to say the least.

                I don't believe Dr. Mork either when he says to you that he hasn't had a patient that developed an infection. But I don't think he or the facility where you had your surgery gave you an infection on purpose. That is one of the questions people need to ask before that have any kind of major surgery...what is the infection rate?

                I'm sorry you feel so angry about having to suffer thru all of the pain. I'm glad that in the end your feeling better
                SandyC

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                • #9
                  Glad to know there's someone else out there

                  Hi SandyC -

                  Thank you for responding to me. I thought I was alone with the hell I went through with my post-operative infection. I hope you are doing well now.

                  -Leah

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                  • #10
                    Leah,
                    Yes and Thanks, I'm doing well. Even with the infection and all that went with it, I feel it was worth it
                    SandyC

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                    • #11
                      Success with Microspine

                      Sorry to hear about bad experiences, but with Dr. Mork performing about 600 procedures a year the statistics say that there have to be patients that do not get optimal results especially since Microspine treats a large number of patients who come there after failed open back surgery with intractable pain.

                      I had TLFP surgery at Microspine for severe spinal stenosis at L4-5, 14 days ago. I Could not walk more than a few yards unaided without severe pain, dropped left foot and no reflex in left leg. One hour after surgery, walked out standing straight unaided without pain for the first time in over five years. Against all the odds, even my dropped foot has shown a 50% recovery already and we will see if I have any reflex recovery after nerves get some relief from the decompression. I consider this result just short of a miracle.

                      I would highly recommend that anyone considering open back surgery to at least get a second opinion from Microspine or one of the other 2 or 3 centers that perform minimally invasive surgery and ONLY minimally invasive surgery.

                      Happy Patient

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by SrBruiser
                        Sorry to hear about bad experiences, but with Dr. Mork performing about 600 procedures a year the statistics say that there have to be patients that do not get optimal results especially since Microspine treats a large number of patients who come there after failed open back surgery with intractable pain.
                        600 Surgeries a year?... Wow, that's a lot, and I don't mean that in a good way. I don't know how anyone would fit in that many procedures in a year plus office consultations without being in constant rush. I'd understand that many procedures if it's simple minor surgical procedures (like mole removal..ect) but regardless of how 'minimally invasive' it is.. it's still spinal surgery.. eeek.
                        30 something y.o.

                        2003 - T45, L???
                        2005 - T50, L31
                        bunch of measurements between...

                        2011 - T60, L32
                        2013 - T68, L?

                        Posterior Fusion Sept 2014 -- T3 - L3
                        Post - op curve ~35


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                        • #13
                          Correction

                          Small Correction - I meant to say that there are about 600 procedures performed at Microspine a year which if you actually knew about the minimally invasive technique is not that many. They only work at one spinal level at a time and the average procedure is about 2 hours and I believe they average about 2 or so per day. For a busy spinal surgeon 4 hours a day is not much at all since I have read descriptions of open back surgery with multi-level fusion that have gone on for 6 to 12 hours and the recovery time is measured in months and years not as in minimally invasive procedures a few weeks.

                          Everybody has to make their own decisions first whether or not to even have back surgery period - always a tough choice. Or to undergo the standard of care open back procedures with all that it entails not the least is the extremely long recovery period with a fair amount of pain or to try to go where the technology is leading in many types of surgery not just spinal and that is the minimally invasive procedures that do as little damage to the non-diseased areas as possible with the best possible outcome with short recovery times. If you do the research you will see that this is the future of surgery in general. Unfortunately, a relatively small number of surgeons are trained in these new techniques at the present time, so the availability is a little sparse.

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by SrBruiser
                            Everybody has to make their own decisions first whether or not to even have back surgery period - always a tough choice. Or to undergo the standard of care open back procedures with all that it entails not the least is the extremely long recovery period with a fair amount of pain or to try to go where the technology is leading in many types of surgery not just spinal and that is the minimally invasive procedures that do as little damage to the non-diseased areas as possible with the best possible outcome with short recovery times. If you do the research you will see that this is the future of surgery in general. Unfortunately, a relatively small number of surgeons are trained in these new techniques at the present time, so the availability is a little sparse.
                            I believe that the types of procedures typically done at Micro Spine are not appropriate for scoliosis fusions. Minimally invasive procedures are being done for some scoliosis curves, but they are generally the same amount of operative time as open procedures.

                            --Linda
                            Never argue with an idiot. They always drag you down to their level, and then they beat you with experience. --Twain
                            ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                            Surgery 2/10/93 A/P fusion T4-L3
                            Surgery 1/20/11 A/P fusion L2-sacrum w/pelvic fixation

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by SrBruiser
                              Small Correction - I meant to say that there are about 600 procedures performed at Microspine a year which if you actually knew about the minimally invasive technique is not that many. They only work at one spinal level at a time and the average procedure is about 2 hours and I believe they average about 2 or so per day. For a busy spinal surgeon 4 hours a day is not much at all since I have read descriptions of open back surgery with multi-level fusion that have gone on for 6 to 12 hours and the recovery time is measured in months and years not as in minimally invasive procedures a few weeks.
                              LOL, well of course it'll take much longer for multi-level fusions to heal... you can't possibly think it's even remotly possible to have only a few weeks worth of recovery time for a scoliosis fusion...

                              I understand what minimally invasive techniques are, regradless all it sounds to me is like they are trying to promote themselves by flashing numbers, marathoning through the procedure to fit the numbers in.

                              What I want to know is at the risk of sounding snarky is, what are you posting here? I mean, you have two posts since joining, all under this thread and you don't seem to have scoliosis or understand that the surgical needs of a scoliosis patient is compeletly different from that of someone with a degenerative spinal disease.
                              30 something y.o.

                              2003 - T45, L???
                              2005 - T50, L31
                              bunch of measurements between...

                              2011 - T60, L32
                              2013 - T68, L?

                              Posterior Fusion Sept 2014 -- T3 - L3
                              Post - op curve ~35


                              Comment

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