A Patient from China Undergoes Discseel Procedure 15 Years after Basketball Injury (Male, 30s)

Disease/Symptoms

• Disc Herniation
• Disc Degeneration

Patient Condition

The patient's lower back pain has gradually worsened since he injured it playing basketball 15 years ago. He also reports numbness in his left lower leg, with symptoms worsening particularly when bending forward. He visited our clinic after a friend who received treatment here improved.

Examination

This is an MRI scan of the lower back. The intervertebral discs between the 4th and 5th lumbar vertebrae, and between the 5th lumbar and 1st sacral vertebrae, appear black and deformed. At first glance, the disc volume seems to be preserved.

Treatment Details

Disc Seal Treatment

The treatment method differs entirely depending on whether the pressure inside the disc is low or high. Since it's difficult to determine with just an MRI, we conducted an Annulogram examination.

This shows the Annulogram examination. You can see the contrast agent flowing within the intervertebral disc. Since it was confirmed that the intradiscal pressure was low, we performed disc seal treatment. Conversely, if the contrast agent does not flow into the disc, and high pressure is confirmed, decompression treatments (such as PLDD or DiscoGel therapy) would be indicated.

These are X-rays before and after treatment. The left side is before treatment, and the right side is after treatment.

The treatment took 12 minutes. A sedative was used for this procedure.

Holiday Memories

The extended holiday felt too long for me. When I asked my kids if they thought so too, they replied, "It was just right."

During the holiday, I went to a Hanshin Tigers game at Koshien Stadium and we had a day BBQ at Oizumi Ryokuchi Park (Osaka).

However, at Koshien, I got to see Morishita's home run from the front row!

Other than that, I mostly just watched TV while lying down, but when I saw on the news that President Trump said he "wanted to annex Canada," I thought, "Wait a minute... no, that's completely wrong."

Apparently, he also wants to become the Pope, but even as a joke, a president shouldn't say that.

Oh yeah, the clinic's original character, "Helmet Girl," is now on a T-shirt.

That's all. It was a rather uneventful extended holiday.