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This is such an extreme case.....the surgeons did a good job through the years at limiting or controlling her curves.
To think about the pain she went through all these years is just heartbreaking. I can barely comment.
Flerc, thx for posting
Ed
49 yr old male, now 63, the new 64...
Pre surgery curves T70,L70
ALIF/PSA T2-Pelvis 01/29/08, 01/31/08 7" pelvic anchors BMP
Dr Brett Menmuir St Marys Hospital Reno,Nevada
That's really great to give extendable rods to adults. It seems much easier than halo traction. Maybe she will get mote correction than from an (instantaneous) fusion surgery also. That woman is so beautiful.
Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis
No island of sanity.
Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works? Answer: Medicine
Would love to know how they plan to keep the rod from breaking.
Never argue with an idiot. They always drag you down to their level, and then they beat you with experience. --Twain
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Surgery 2/10/93 A/P fusion T4-L3
Surgery 1/20/11 A/P fusion L2-sacrum w/pelvic fixation
well, they don't always keep "regular" rods from breaking...
progress is not overnite...i am sure there will be things along
the way to work out...
but what a wonderful step forward...
i am sure in years to come there will be new procedures,
other kinds of approaches....
all needing to be tested out and refined along the way.
Would love to know how they plan to keep the rod from breaking.
It is hanging out there..... If it does break, 2 small incisions to replace with a larger rod system. It’s not going to be that hard to make a larger diameter rod setup. They should build it right away for her.
This poor girl has finally gotten some relief.....I sure hope her neck can hang in there....
I’m guessing that they removed her hardware hoping her upper spine will remodel straighter....I wonder which levels are fused?
She truly is a scoliosis trooper.
Ed
49 yr old male, now 63, the new 64...
Pre surgery curves T70,L70
ALIF/PSA T2-Pelvis 01/29/08, 01/31/08 7" pelvic anchors BMP
Dr Brett Menmuir St Marys Hospital Reno,Nevada
The article doesn't say when the last surgery prior to the MAGEC surgery was done. I'm guessing that her prior surgeries all utilized growing rods, which would mean she had very little or no fusion.
Jess is right, regular rods can break. That happens when fusion doesn't occur. In this case, there is (intentionally) no fusion, so it seems to me that the rods will almost certainly break unless they go in and fuse the spine.
--Linda
Never argue with an idiot. They always drag you down to their level, and then they beat you with experience. --Twain
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Surgery 2/10/93 A/P fusion T4-L3
Surgery 1/20/11 A/P fusion L2-sacrum w/pelvic fixation
I was assuming that the period from maturity to age 35 (being a 20 year stretch) would certainly require fusion at some period especially with such an aggressive type of scoliosis.....this we wont know unless she posts somewhere. It would be nice if she did.....after all, we are all in the same boat.
I’m sure the possibility of breakage was thought of, and I hope they have a plan in store if it does. They have FDA approval for the device, I hope it doesn’t require too much red tape if diameter is part of this approval. They have the sizes listed on their site, they seem a bit small since they target the kids. It would be nice if they could be proactive size wise in regards to the adults that are in need of this system.
I have read in the past that some movement is beneficial for the fusing process to happen, otherwise they would simply go larger in size and we wouldn’t have to worry about breakage. With the MAGEC system, fusing isn’t the goal, why engineer the system (on the weak side) if breakage is of any concern? I am guessing the minute they have a breakage, this will be addressed.
Ed
49 yr old male, now 63, the new 64...
Pre surgery curves T70,L70
ALIF/PSA T2-Pelvis 01/29/08, 01/31/08 7" pelvic anchors BMP
Dr Brett Menmuir St Marys Hospital Reno,Nevada
If you look at the radiograph, there are no rods or screws but there are other things that look like tiny wires or something. Or not.
She may not have had surgery before. This may be her first surgery. If so, then what is the end game here? Is it to straighten before a definitive fusion?
What is the motion of her spine with the growing rod compared to a fusion? Is she still flexible? If so then I don't understand why all adults don't get a growing rod in place of fusion.
Also, autofusion is a known problem with regular growing rods at least. I am not sure if it is a problem with rods that can be lengthened more often, maybe not. But if MAGEC tends to cause autofusion also then she will essentially be fused without benefit of being de-rotated as in a fusion. Maybe she isn't rotated but if she was rotated like my one daughter, the correction of that was as important as correcting the curve. It really mattered. Maybe only screws can do that.
Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis
No island of sanity.
Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works? Answer: Medicine
If you look at the radiograph, there are no rods or screws but there are other things that look like tiny wires or something. Or not.
She may not have had surgery before. This may be her first surgery. If so, then what is the end game here? Is it to straighten before a definitive fusion? <snip>
Hi Sharon,
the little "wires" you see are skin staples.
The article mentions she has had many spine surgeries, starting at 6 weeks of age…I guess I don't understand then why she wasn't fused as a teenager or young adult. I too was wondering if the plan is to straighten her up gradually with the MAGEC then fuse her?? So many unanswered questions in these small popular health articles.
Gayle, age 50
Oct 2010 fusion T8-sacrum w/ pelvic fixation
Feb 2012 lumbar revision for broken rods @ L2-3-4
Sept 2015 major lumbar A/P revision for broken rods @ L5-S1
mom of Leah, 15 y/o, Diagnosed '08 with 26* T JIS (age 6)
2010 VBS Dr Luhmann Shriners St Louis
2017 curves stable/skeletely mature
Since she is 35 and had her first surgery as an infant, chances are they might have used Luque wires on her. That was the choice method for extreme curves during that period. Brad had a Luque wire procedure back in 1983 by Dr Bradford. She did have an OMG sized 130, and I’m guessing that it was similar to Brads with the main curve up high in the thoracic. Her clavicle in her x-ray is deformed pretty bad. These high curves that affect the cervical area are probably the worst, many of the kypho’s have similar neck deformity issues. If fusing a few levels up high, I don’t think that growing rods would be needed for shorty or short fusions. Good question for an elder scoliosis surgeon. Seeing her original x-ray’s as a child would answer many questions. Another thing is when were growing rods 1st used in pediatric scoliosis? Did they have them back then? Do they do full or long spine surgeries on 6 week old infants?
Growing rods must be a tube over a shaft.....I sure would like to see these....
I asked my surgeon about the Luque wires, and does he see them often? He told me he does, and they simply pull them out now.
Before the pedicle screw, correction of rotation was best achieved by the Luque system since it was a method of attaching to each level. The problem is that the wires pull into the bone after time...Good question for Dr Hu since I have seen her Luque wire tying procedures in the Moe handbook. It’s an exacting set of tying procedures.
I think right now that pain control is the main goal....She seems to be doing well right now as stated in the article.
Whatever it takes to keep her comfortable, at least for now...
I don’t know if I can ever complain about neck pain again....
Ed
49 yr old male, now 63, the new 64...
Pre surgery curves T70,L70
ALIF/PSA T2-Pelvis 01/29/08, 01/31/08 7" pelvic anchors BMP
Dr Brett Menmuir St Marys Hospital Reno,Nevada
The article mentions she has had many spine surgeries, starting at 6 weeks of age…I guess I don't understand then why she wasn't fused as a teenager or young adult. I too was wondering if the plan is to straighten her up gradually with the MAGEC then fuse her?? So many unanswered questions in these small popular health articles.
Gayle, good point! And I hope you and the kids are well.
I missed that she had several surgeries. She either was not instrumented or they removed the hardware when they put the growing rod in.
Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis
No island of sanity.
Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works? Answer: Medicine
This is such an extreme case.....the surgeons did a good job through the years at limiting or controlling her curves.
To think about the pain she went through all these years is just heartbreaking. I can barely comment.
Flerc, thx for posting
Ed
Hi Ed. thanx to you, it's good to see this irish woman, very pretty really. Also I wanted to see the x-rays.. certainly it not seems to me a 130º curve, I'm not seeing it clear enough yet, but I think some vertebras should to be too much inclined, so surely another method measuring the curve itself, regardless the vertebras, would give a lower number.
Anyway I hope this non fusion surgeries in adults may continue, I think it coluld be because now is known that bone remodeling in adults is a fact, so it might be possible to get a vertebra with a normal shape (or almost) after a time without the curve (or not so big), so hardware could be then removed.
This is not the first non fusion in adult case I have heard. I think this women was a voluntarie.. Elipse could have many voluntaries in my country.. see the kind of tv commercial that scoliotic people are seeing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N22Nr76Xi6A
'Time ago people should have to work in a sacrificed way in order to have their floors clean... this was a kind of work creating MONSTERS! (showing the hump).. but now we have New Bl..3.. none back will suffer again!'
Incredible, but true.
That is incredible......It’s a shame that the producers of that video couldn’t think of something else....
There “could” be a chance that some of us might be offended.
Just a thought.
Ed
49 yr old male, now 63, the new 64...
Pre surgery curves T70,L70
ALIF/PSA T2-Pelvis 01/29/08, 01/31/08 7" pelvic anchors BMP
Dr Brett Menmuir St Marys Hospital Reno,Nevada
Yes Ed, many people was affected, I know about a terrible case of a little kid asking her mother for this product thinking it will help her to not be a monster any more. We made a lot of denunces but this company seems to be very powerful and Organizations of my country dealing with discrimination issues didn't do nothing.. it should to be an International Organism against discrimination.. do you know?
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