Michelle Willard – mwillard@dnj.com – December 16, 2016
Back pain sufferers will try anything to relieve the constant pain from therapy to medications to injections before going under the knife.
That was no different for one patient at TriStar StoneCrest Medical Center in Smyrna.
Daniel Gamber had done everything short of surgery to relieve his nerve pain originating in the neck, said Dr. James Fish, an orthopedic spine surgeon affiliated with Hughston Clinic.
“Every patient that enters our doors is different, which is why TriStar StoneCrest Medical Center continues bringing alternative spine surgery options to our community,” Fish said. “We have to be able to provide the best treatment, surgical or non-surgical, for each patient based on their pathology.”
In the case of Gamber, the best option was a ground-breaking procedure, the first two level cervical disk replacement in Rutherford County.
Fish performed the disk replacement at StoneCrest. This procedure is less invasive that other surgical procedures and reduces the likelihood of additional surgical needs, especially in young patients.
“Continuing to bring alternative spinal surgery to our suburban-based hospital is exciting for TriStar StoneCrest Medical Center and Rutherford County,” Fish said about the surgery that aims to remove a damaged disc in the spine that is causing pain and replace it with an artificial disc.
