The Causes and Symptoms of Spinal Disc Herniation – Anil Kesani MD

Dr. Anil Kesani explains that spinal disc herniation is a condition occurs when the intervertebral vertebral disc’s outer fibrous ring, the annulus fibrosis, develops a tear. This results in the nucleus pulposis, or the soft inner part of the disc, bulging out past the damaged outer rings.

A spine specialist based in Texas, Dr. Anil Kumar Kesani is fellowship-trained and maintains board certification in his field. Anil Kesani, MD, founded and practices at SpineMD.  Dr. Kesani has extensive experience in treating a wide array of spinal problems including spinal disc herniation or slipped discs.

Spinal disc herniation or slipped discs in turn, can cause pinched nerves and shooting arm or leg pain, burning pain, numbness and tingling or in some cases weakness. 

If the spinal disc herniation is centered in the cervical spine or neck, symptoms include severe neck pain and pain that radiates down the arm that represents cervical radiculopathy.

If the disc herniation of the thoracic spine, the result is often severe upper to mid back pain, as well as radiating pain into the side of the rib cage and chest in “band-like patterns” which represents thoracic radiculopathy.

In cases where the disc herniation is centered in the lumbar spine, the result is often severe low back pain associated with sciatica or radiating leg pain that represents lumbar radiculopathy.

Please visit Dr. Anil Kesani’s youtube videos at SpineMD below.

Alternatives To Spinal Fusion Procedures – Anil Kesani MD

Dr. Anil Kesani explains that there are a number of alternatives to spinal fusion procedures including both nonsurgical as well as surgical.  An orthopedic spine surgeon at SpineMD, Dr. Anil Kumar Kesani serves patients in the North Richland Hills and Dallas Fort Worth areas of Texas. Dr. Anil Kesani specializes in minimally invasive spinal surgeries as well as motion preserving procedures that serve as alternatives to spinal fusion procedures such as disc replacements.

Spinal fusion is a surgical technique that joins two or more vertebrae and helps eliminate pain associated with their movement.  It is a good option if the neck or back pain is coming directly from movement of a degenerative intervertebral disc or degenerative facet joint.  However, the fusion surgery can be quite invasive and some alternatives to spinal fusion procedures do exist.

The least invasive line of treatment is usually physical therapy, which can lessen pain by strengthening the muscles around the spine. Steroid injections can relieve inflammation-based pain but are often short-acting or temporary. Another minimally invasive alternative is radiofrequency ablation. This involves ablating the nerves or burning the small sensory nerves to the facet joints responsible for the pain, which causes them to stop sending pain signals to the brain.

Finally, surgical options that are alternatives to spinal fusion that exist include nerve decompression alone without fusion such as laminectomy and discectomy.  Another option is a disc replacement, where the surgeon removes the disc that is either compressing or pinching the spinal cord or nerves and placing a disc replacement.  Disc replacement are not recommended if patients suffer from neck pain from facet joint arthritis as this would allow the arthritic bone to continue to rub against each other to continue to cause pain.  Another contraindication is if a patient has instability as this can predispose to the implant shifting.  For more information about nonoperative treatments, including physical therapy and injections, visit Dr. Kesani’s YouTube site here.

Advantages of Total Disc Replacement – Anil Kesani, MD

Dr. Anil Kesani a spine surgeon who practices in the Dallas Fort Worth area explains that total disc replacement is a good and viable alternative to spinal fusion to treat degenerative conditions that affect the disc within the cervical spine.

An orthopedic and spine surgeon at SpineMD, Dr. Anil Kesani earned his MD from Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine. He later went on to undertake an orthopedic surgery residency and a combined orthopedic and neurosugery spine fellowship.  He is board certified by the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery.  Please see his video on causes, diagnosis, and treatment options for neck pain is available at youtube.com.

Dr. Anil Kesani has successfully carried out motion preserving spine surgery procedures in the form of cervical disc replacement procedures and others. Motion preservation spine surgery (MPSS) is an approach that treats degenerative spinal disc disorders without spinal fusion to treat conditions such as disc degeneration and disc herniation.  Spinal fusion restricts movement in the spine by fusing two or more vertebrae. This can alleviate pain caused by such movement.  However in situations where the disc degeneration or disc herniation is exclusively causing all of the pain symptoms and patients have normal facet joints as well as no instability then disc replacement is an excellent treatment option.

Frequently disc replacement surgery takes less time compared to traditional open spinal surgeries and allows for faster recovery.  Similar to standard hip or knee replacement, disc replacement surgery treats patients with a seriously damaged (degenerated) disc by replacing the defective disc with an artificial one. The artificial disc restores flexibility and movement to the affected area by mimicking a healthy disc.

Please call SpineMD at (817) 893 6001 and see Dr. Anil Kesani for further information.