A note from Dr. Kami

Hi everyone, I wanted to let you all know what has been going on with me the last few weeks and what to expect moving forward.

At the end of November, I was personally dealing with some lower back disc pain. During one of my side posture adjustments with a patient on 11/30/2023 I actually felt my disc herniate. Throughout that night I developed something called saddle paresthesia. This is potentially an emergency surgical situation and I went to the ER to get an MRI for assessment on 12/1/2023. It was ruled that my condition was not emergent at that time but we did find out that I had severely ruptured my L4 disc. I had a ½ inch chunk of my inner disc blow out into my spinal canal pushing on my nerves as well as a couple other small herniations.

As you are all aware, I did not see patients for the last 2 weeks to attempt to heal this disc extrusion. During this time, I was adjusted 2x/day, went to physical therapy five times, had cupping and massage done as well as electrostimulation. Even with all this wonderful conservative therapy my body continued to get worse. I ended up with severe, intense electrical shooting pain down my right leg, couldn’t feel my toes, had foot drop, ankle buckling and couldn’t make my toes move up and down. These are all neurological deficits that if they last too long can become permanent.

Starting Thurs 12/14/23 I again began developing the emergent type cauda equina symptoms and continued to have muscle weakness in my foot and intense pain. All big red flags so I consulted with a neurosurgeon on Friday morning. Due to the nature of my neurological symptoms and the nasty looking MRI we both decided that this situation had become emergent and I should move forward with surgery.

We decided on a minimally invasive microdiscectomy to remove the chunk of disc that had blown out. But once the surgeon got in there it was worse than he thought and the MRI images showed. My very lower back nerves L5 and S1 were completely squished and flattened as well as I had some extra ligament tearing, he didn’t expect. So, because of this he needed to open up some space to try to get the nerve root to round back out and be hopeful I will regain all muscle control back in my foot.

Moving forward. I will not be adjusting for at least 8 weeks and when I return, I may need to make some modifications to my technique adjusting low backs as I continue to heal. My plan is to be present in the office after Christmas for exams, paperwork and questions. Please stay on track with your care and don’t risk your own setbacks. I will be having some different cover docs in the office to help me out through these next couple of months.

Already some of my function is improving and the pain is significantly less. This was a really hard call as a chiropractor but was absolutely the right choice due to the severity. Now I am on my healing journey and there will be ups and downs. Just like I tell all of you.

I’ll be back good as new as soon as I can. I truly care deeply about each and every one of you and it is so hard not to be taking care of you.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your families.

Be well, Dr. Kami