Chronic neck or back pain have you or a loved one contemplating surgery?  29.9% of adults 18 and older have back pain. 7 in 10 of those with back pain will have a re-occurrence of that pain within a year. In 2016, it was the leading cause of disability. Dr. Ardavan Aslie is a 20 year veteran in the spine surgery industry. He’s a board certified, Harvard University fellow spine surgeon who received his undergraduate education at the University of California, Berkeley and he’s the author of the book Corporate Spine. While conducting research for the creation of his laminar plating system he uncovered some disturbing information about the spinal surgery specialty. Since then he’s been on a mission to change the standard of care within his industry to improve spinal surgery outcomes. In this episode of The Health Fix Podcast, Dr. Jannine Krause interviews Dr. Ardavan Aslie on the current standard of care in the spine surgery field, how it impacts surgical clients, what he proposes instead and why. 

 

What You’ll Learn In This Episode:

 

• Pain in the disc is not always correlated with location of damage
• Damage + inflammation cause pain but exact location of pain or inflammation can’t be identified with any imaging
• What to think about when considering spine surgery
• A spine surgeon’s insight for patients from dispelling myths to making the best decisions for your health.
• How stabilizing the spine is a huge aspect of spine surgery
• Why holding companies to higher standards of in vivo research prior to release of products is important.

 

 

Resources From The Show: 

Dr. Aslie’s Book - Corporate Spine

 

Dr. Aslie's Practice in Sacramento, CA 

 

Zdeblick study that Dr. Ardavan refers to - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8367786/ - Cited by 1,125 articles at time of the podcast production (up 3 since the podcast was recorded)

This was a preliminary study not even a final study. The paper was written by the company and the US senate did investigate the screws in the 90's.