"Boulder Woman Credits Doctor For Giving Her Chance To Ride Again" - Michael Abeyta
Sarah Guenther loves to move, and she’s happiest when she’s working up a sweat. That’s why she decided to move from New York City to Colorado; to be among the natural beauty of the state as she goes to school and races triathlons. Right before she packed up, her training hit a roadblock during a workout in Central Park. She was cut off by a tourist who was not paying attention, and instead of swerving she hit both of her brakes and flew over her handlebars. She had a lot of road rash and needed 150 stiches in her face. Worst of all she had swelling in her neck which cause severe neck and shoulder pain. Saad Chaudhary, MD, associate director of the spine surgery fellowship and assistant professor in the department of orthopedic surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, remembers when he first saw her. “She had a very hard time lifting up her shoulder. She had a hard time even bending up her elbow to do basic tasks,” he said. Usually a spinal fusion would be performed to relieve the pressure placed on her disk, but she and Dr. Chaudhary were concerned about losing range of motion. “So the procedure we selected for her was to again, decompress and remove the disk” said Dr. Chaudhary. “But as opposed to fusing or locking that area we placed a mobile part or mobile disk in there that would allow her to retain her normal range of motion.”
- Saad B. Chaudhary, MD, MBA, Minimally Invasive & Complex Spine Surgery, The Mount Sinai Hospital, Associate Director, Spine Surgery Fellowship, Assistant Professor, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
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