Where do you see Spine repair in the future?

[Toebin]

I spend a bit of time every week looking at new and interesting medical procedures or research and I often find myself wondering where we will be with spinal repair's in the next decade or so.

I figured since I wondered, perhaps some of you do as well, and it might be "fun" to ponder it a bit.

Currently spinal repair is very much centered around surgery and medical devices. Much like the improvements that have happened with knee, hip, ankle repairs. And yet the spine is SO much more involved, it really makes you think..

More and more artificial disks are coming out, better surgical techniques are being realized, better inclusion/exclusion criteria are being brought forth, even better compounds to make things heal faster, stronger etc...
Fibrin injections that have helped with injured disks and pain, bone growth compounds.....

So do we see the field of spine surgery going down the orthopedic path and hardware related ? Or is this too simple of an assumption?

With all the things that CAN and DO go wrong in the spine I have to say I get excited every time I read about the stem cells they have discovered that can be turned off and on for self healing disks. Or nerve regeneration techniques centered around genetic manipulation that I have read about.. Mind you I also think I'm reading medical mumbo jumbo sometimes. Things that researchers are looking into that read like something Orson Wells would have included in a radio program...lol

But I honestly feel that in the future, with all the energy directed in the genetic's /stem cell area that we just might be looking at a future that could be surgically free when it comes to the spine ?

I read a month or so ago that they have identified the stem cells that grow spinal disks and they have also found the on off switch for them. Can you imagine, you injure a disk and you go in ... have the stem cell turned on... and your disk repairs itself? Or am I taking this way too far from the realm of reality?

There is some pretty heady stuff out there that the medical/scientific community is working on.

Where do YOU see us going ?

[New-disc]

Hello,

Lets hope our greatest minds will take us in that direction. ( stem cell )

If surgery can be avoided it should be...

Disc re-generation are the keys into the future.

Lets all hope we live to see that day!!!

Until then all Americans should have the right to the latest disc-replacement-technology without (Ins. or anything else getting in our way.)

Fix us, and put us back to work!!!

We must ask our leaders........

Why are the German's so far ahead?

Why do Americans spend so much $ over sea's getting fixed? mmmmm.....

Now is the time to fix our people with the with the best parts, and the best technology to be found.

Take greed out of our system, then all of us will be able to move faster into the future.

Todd

[Adrienne]

There’s a huge fund of knowledge in medicine but it’s still a young science, a teen that can’t decide on a major. He tries engineering but finds he can barely read a novel. He tries creative writing but finds he can’t balance a checkbook, etc. etc.
We fix the biggest leak but then the pressure builds only to have another system fail. No one seems to be looking at the whole picture. Yet.

I think in the end the practice of medicine is going to boil down to keeping our cells reproducing themselves well, to keep us burning brightly to 120 (the ultimate span of the human cell) and then go * poof*……out like an incandescent light bulb. This will probably involve using stem cells, or something very basic to cell life.

Hopefully, surgery, using a knife, will seem barbaric 20 years from now. Should we wait? Maybe but it’s going to require a LOT of Advil.

[Toebin]

Originally Posted by Adrienne

Should we wait? Maybe but it’s going to require a LOT of Advil.

LOL Adrienne, waiting for many will not be an option, nor should it be with the amount of pain many of us have, but I like your comment...

And I also think the field of natural healing is so new with all the genetic and stem cell research going on ... it will be a long time coming. But we've already seen "some" of that technology help some of our very own members just this year. A fibrin injection has helped a long time member with pain they have suffered immensely with, and I've also read here that some spine patients have had stem cells implanted with fusion surgeries.

I don't think we'll see an overnight change in healthcare, but I do think we will see new advances trickle in slowly.