Dr. Hey

[joybird]

Hello there. I am new to this forum and live in North Carolina. I am posting on behalf of my 18-year-old daughter. She has a thoracolumbar curve that has continued to progress rapidly past skeletal maturity, and is evaluating her surgical options. We've consulted with 3 different doctors, and all concur that it is unlikely that her curve will stop progressing and feel that her particular case would have a very good surgical outcome. So the decision comes down to which doctor. The last one we saw was Dr. Hey, whom I have the impression is considered one of the top surgeons. The biggest difference between him and the other two was that he feels he can correct her curve much better and often gets similar patients down to 0 degrees. When we left his office, we all had a vague feeling of discomfort: it it too good to be true? I've been trawling through the forum looking for input on him, but would love to hear directly from anyone who has undergone surgery with Dr. Hey for any feedback, be it good or bad, before we make this big decision. Thank you!

~Kristi

[mabeckoff]

Back in 2011, I needed to have a major revision surgery. My surgeon, in Charlotte NC, messed me up very badly.
I was relocating to Southern CA at that time. I was referred to a great surgeon in CA by one of the moderators on this forum.
He sent me to Dr Hey for a second opinion. Dr Hey and my CA surgeon agreed on how to handle my back totally. If I was not moving to CA, I would have used Dr Hey without any question.

[Pooka1]

Hi. I have two fused daughters but I have no direct experience with Dr. Hey. I have been reading his blog and viewing his videos. I have Iimpressions, not facts for what they are worth.

It is my impression that Dr. Hey does value hyper-correction and I would not be surprised if he got your daughter to zero. One of my daughters was hyper-corrected. Although a top surgeon said the more aligned you can get the unfused spine the less chance you will need a revision for thoracic curves, I am not sure about TL curves. That said, there is an older article asking how much correction is enough? That article was questioning to increased cost of newer instrumentation versus incremental improvement in correction.

I have noted Dr. Hey seems willing to go the extra mile to better align spines. I assume that is to reduce the chances of needing an extention but I don't know that. You could ask him if he intends to do things to reduce the chances your daughter would need an extension. Reducing the chances of needing an extension would be one of my top priorities speaking only for myself and I would pick a surgeon at least partially on that basis.

Good luck.