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It's a call that's telling me I'm here to serve. It's a need to make a difference in
the world. 24 hours day or night these healing hands will make it right. Looking in their
eyes I know that I'm changing lives, changing lives, changing lives for the better, for
the better, changing lives. Hi again everyone, Jim Knox back again with another edition of
the Best Docs Network along with Kandace Kreuger, we welcome you to the program. Of course Best
Docs Network featuring some of the best doctors in the middle Tennessee area that helped change
people’s lives. You bet, like our first doctor plastic surgeon, Dr. Ronald Gilmer
who has a unique way to perform breast augmentation. I came to see Dr. Gilmer because I was referred
to him by somebody who used to shop with me at a clothing store that I worked at. So,
she had just gotten her procedure done with Dr. Gilmer and I’d always thought about
it so I came in to see him. Brianna came in requesting a tuba augmentation. And what the
tuba augmentation is, is you put the implant in through, around incisions around the umbalicus,
the belly button. Now that doesn’t leave any scars on the chest, it’s a quicker operation,
has less complications and has less pain. I came in and met with Dr. Gilmer and everything
was just set up very quickly after that. I think I was on the books in less than a week.
You know I had already made the decision to have the procedure and Dr. Gilmer just made
it very easy. And when we talked to Brianna we asked her exactly what she wanted and how
she wanted it done. Did she want the implants put above the muscle or did she want the implants
put below the muscle, what size she would like to be and all those things are discussed
with the patients at length. Now when you go through the belly button, you can only
use saline implants so if a patient elects to go with silicone implants they have to
have a different surgical approach to put those implants in. I was more nervous about
being put to sleep than anything. I’d never had anesthesia before and it made me feel
very safe and secure in that decision. Everybody was very professional and courteous. I didn’t
feel uncomfortable at all. Sometimes you think there’s a stigma attached to it to having
the procedure done and I didn’t feel that way at all. I wasn’t hesitant in any way.
The procedure takes from start to finish, anesthesia, awake, about an hour. She’s
in the recovery room about an hour and then she goes home with assistance. I’m very
pleased with the results of the procedure performed by Dr. Gilmer. It was something
that I had always wanted to do and made a big difference for me on a personal level.
I feel a lot more confident in myself and it was something I decided to do for me and
I’m very glad that I did. Mr. Vega had trouble seeing riding his motorcycle until he met
Ophthalmologist, Dr. Daniel Bregman. To find out more about Mr. Vega’s story and other
life changing stories, log on to bestdocsnetwork.com. Bariatric surgery is not new to Centennial.
It’s been performed at Centennial for probably more than 30 years. But when I started the
program in 2000, I realized the importance of integrating all aspects of care to have
a comprehensive program to treat all aspects of the bariatric patient. Because in addition
to the physical issues and the metabolic issues we also have the psychological issues that
play into obesity and to maximize success you have to address all of these aspects of
care. We have three dedicated surgeons who care about the patients, who care about this
disease. We’re not a factory trying to turn out a ton of cases every year. We’re really
trying to improve the lives of these patients. Our program itself, we feel is special and
set apart from other programs. We have wonderful dietitians on staff, exercise physiologists,
we have support groups with psychological after care programs to help the patients deal
with the emotional side of eating. We like to see all patients come through our informational
seminars and it really goes A-Z about bariatric surgery and what it entails. What the risk
of the surgery is, what the outcomes are and what to expect long term. So when you have
bariatric surgery at Centennial, the dietitian’s consultation, the exercise physiologist’s
consultation, our physiological after care program, it’s all included at no additional
charge. We’re a center of excellence with the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric
Surgery which is the national bariatric surgical society. We’re centers of excellence with
many insurance programs. But when you’re the center of excellence that means you have
to meet the highest criteria and that you have to have excellent results, minimal complications
and follow up and take care of patients long term. From the check in area and the admissions
department through the holding area and the surgical department to the operating room
and even on the floor after surgery. Special beds, special bathroom accommodations, special
gowns and all these things make it possible for the patients to have their best, safest
experience with bariatric surgery here at Centennial. When I was diagnosed with breast
cancer, both of my daughters were pregnant and everything I was looking forward to turned
into everything I was going to miss. First words, first steps, being there for my grandchildren,
for my daughters. Today, those babies are three. I'm with them all the time. I don't
know what's next but I know I'm here today. My name is Alantheia Pena. I am Susan G. Komen
For The Cure. Help cure breast cancer and save women's lives. Up next anesthesiologist
and pain management specialist Dr. Timothy Arney who helps individuals with their pain.
I was in the military. I was in aviation the majority of my time that I was in the military.
I went through you know normal training exercises that I went through, crash landed a few times
and the third one was the charm that really messed me up. I had fusion done because of
that in my neck and then later on down the years arthritis and everything started setting
in. I was you know really in a lot of pain, mood swings were bad. Mr. Costello was an
amazing case. He had a myriad of really significant symptoms of pain throughout his neck and lower
back. And upon his initial presentation to CPS we evaluated him which included a really
thorough history and physical review of systems and we felt that at that time that he could
receive excessive reduction in his pain from the elective epidural steroid injections.
The ESI’s were explained to me by Dr. Arney that basically what they’re going to do
is they’re going to inject medicine into my spinal cord and that should hopefully alleviate
a lot of the pain that I was having which it did do that. Since that point in time we
have since performed three separate epidural steroid injections in the lumbar region all
of which he has received quite adequate to significantly superior relief of his pain.
Prior to me going in there I was having a hard time sleeping at night, I’ve had fits
to where I couldn’t sit for a while, I couldn’t stand. It basically was dragging me down.
Since then since I’ve had the treatments and that, I’m not as edgy any more, able
to walk farther. Basically it’s been a turnaround for me. I’m going up instead of down now.
We’re just the tool that really helps these folks that are inflicted with back pain and
I have been fortunate enough to meet individuals such as Mr. Costello and I’m really happy
to report that he has seemingly really had a lot of success in relief of his pain. And
the important part of that is that Mr. Costello now is in our opinion able to enjoy his life
more which is really the ultimate objective. Pain relief is fantastic. Dr. Arney has a
great bedside manner, he talks to you like a human being. He’s not happy unless you’re
happy. My name is Katy Epley and I’m with Musicians On Call and our mission is to bring
live and recorded music to the bedsides of patients and healthcare facilities. We’re
here tonight taking Ashley Gearing room to room to play music for patients. I’m volunteering
tonight here with Musicians On Call. I sometimes may feel a little goofy walking into a room
with a guitar by myself but then you see the reaction and you see their expression completely
changes. Fatigue is a very common problem. What are the causes of fatigue? Well, sleep
disorders can cause fatigue. For example if you have sleep apnea where you gasp or choke
at night that can cause you to be tired. So can snoring, so can fragmented sleep where
you awaken a lot during the night. All of that can make you tired as well as not sleeping
enough hours. Taking naps can interrupt the quality of your sleep at nighttime and therefore
you’re going to need another nap because you’re tired, so reducing your naps will
help a lot. Certain diseases can cause disease, for example thyroid problems, anemia, diabetes
and hypertension. These should be checked up on at your physician’s office. If you’re
on certain medications some of them can cause fatigue especially some of the medications
we use to treat hypertension. Depression and stress are common causes for fatigue. For
example people who are stressed out a lot they’re going to have bad sleep and they’re
just going to burn up their adrenaline during the day being stressed and they’re going
to be real tired. Depression and sadness will cause you to be sleepy and tired throughout
the day so getting those diseases treated can help a lot. So, if you’re tired of being
tired think about the things I’ve talked about and try to get them checked out. I had
some pain for some time on my right knee so I said well I can’t handle it anymore I
better go check it out. So I go see Dr. Renfro and he said well, looks like you should have
your knee done. I said well not yet, I don’t really want to have it done yet. When Mark
first presented to the clinic I’m not sure he was convinced he had arthritis to the degree
that he did so we did the usual things. We started with anti-inflammatory medication.
I think he also had a couple of hip injections. Once arthritis gets fairly advanced those
things help just temporarily and didn’t really give him any lasting relief and then
we started talking about joint replacements. It was one of those things. You hate to do
it but then you have to do it. You get where you want to say well gosh do I really need
it? Can I live without it? And you say no, I better get it done. So we did his knee replacement
first and knee replacements take a good bit more therapy and he did fine with that. He
actually did very well with it. And then after his knee quit hurting he started realizing
his hip did hurt him a lot. Knowing Dr. Renfro, I was pleased with the work he did on my knee.
I was satisfied and I said well, I’ll go see Dr. Renfro again for the hip. He did x-rays
on it, he says yes looks like the bone is bone working at it, we better do something.
We set up an appointment for x-rays, he looked at it and I was in the hospital at the center
here for about two or three days and then I went to rehab again for about I guess three
or four weeks. I’ve had some patients go back to work in two to three weeks and again
it depends on what type of work you do. Usually by three months we’ve dismissed a person
and they’re still having some mile symptoms but by six months most people are completely
over it and they don’t even realize they’ve had surgery done. A hip replacement is more
or less just need to get up and walk and do some simple exercises and again he did great
with that. He’s really able now to do more. He’s an active guy. He’s able to do things
he wants to do, there’s no limitations from his right hip and knee and he’s been very
pleased with the results. So far today everything’s fine, working beautiful, running around dancing
and doing the whole bit. For more information on any of the doctors you’ve seen on today’s
show, just go to our website, bestdocsnetwork.com. Exactly correct Kandace, bestdocsnetwork.com
is the place to go to find some of these outstanding physicians like our next doctor, Graham Locke
who helped one individual with an emergency situation. I play in an adult hockey league
here in Nashville. Unfortunately during the game I sustained a very serious injury on
the ice when a puck deflected off of my stick and hit me in the mouth. Immediately my entire
mouth went numb. I knew I had a big problem. I could feel that my teeth were extremely
loose. My front four and bottom two were very loose. I knew I was going to need some emergency
services. Myself and my staff, we immediately came right to the office, met Tom and his
wife and started to collect the data to help make the decision how to handle his injury.
Because I’m a physician, I instinctively knew that I had a big problem. And when I
was able to get in touch with Dr. Locke, he was very clear, there wasn’t a lot of sugar
coating or misinterpretation of exactly what he wanted me to do. Many of the teeth were
knocked out of place and dislodged and we were able to reimplant the teeth putting in
a physiologic splint which is very similar to braces only slightly moveable and it allows
for the tooth to re-anchor into the mouth and give it the best chance to reestablish
a blood supply and stay alive. Over the next couple of visits where we were monitoring
the teeth, some of the teeth did die. But we were able to save and maintain his natural
smile by doing root canal therapy, getting his jaws and teeth healthy again so that he
can go back to focus on practicing neurology. Although we are colleagues and friends he
spoke to me in a very professional manner, made it very clear exactly what was going
to happen, what I could expect, what I would be able to do afterwards and he was exactly
right. I was able to go to work the next day, it was minimal discomfort, non-steroidal anti-inflammatories
like Tylenol and Motrin was all I required and I haven’t had a problem since. He was
able to return to work Monday morning without every missing a beat, able to smile and see
his patients and return to the quality of life that he’s used to. We’re here in
Dallas this week for the first ever your weight matters inaugural convention. It is created
by patients for patients. There’s so many people on our board that have done such a
great job putting together 37 speakers, outstanding number of really high quality speakers. We
far exceeded our expectations for attendance. We’ve had just one great experience after
the other and to be able to end it with the Dallas walk from obesity really means a lot
because that’s something that the obesity action coalition and the ASNBS Foundation
have supported for years. It really helps and since I’m from Nashville and to have
the opportunity to serve on the Obesity Action Coalition and to represent Centennial at events
such as this, it’s really good to have that support throughout our organization and throughout
our program and a lot of our patients, we’ve been chatting back and forth on Facebook and
I’ve been sending them photos of what all’s going on and we’re really hoping that we
may be able to bring this event to Nashville next year. We’re waiting to find out where
our next location is going to be. As the bariatric program director at Centennial Center for
the treatment of obesity and one of the patients of that program, you know it really means
a lot to be out here with so many other patients and I know Dr. Olsen, Dr. Dyer and Dr. Houston
all wish that they could be here at the walk today, but they’ve got to be back in Nashville
while I get to go have all the fun. So of course our surgeons do promote locally the
Nashville walk from obesity. We have one of the most comprehensive bariatric surgery programs
in the country. We have free access to our dieticians, or exercise physiologists, all
of our support groups every month including the psychologist led support groups. So we
really do everything we can to help support you both before surgery and after surgery.
In January of 07 I came to see Dr. Gilmer and had a procedure done at that time. After
I recovered from that procedure, I knew when I initially came to Dr. Gilmer in the back
of my mind there were some other things I wanted taken care of. The ideal patient for
a facelift consists of a patient who has excess loose skin of the face whose jowls on their
jawline are drooping down below their jaw. They feel much older. When I came to talk
to Dr. Gilmer about what I wanted to have done we discussed the procedures. Those procedures
were I wanted my upper eyelids taken care of, I wanted laser resurfacing done, I wanted
a lower facelift and I wanted a breast lift. I was a little concerned that I was trying
to do too much at one time. Dr. Gilmer told me not a problem. When we did her facelift
we decided to add a little extra to get a little better appearance, smoother skin, tighter
skin so I went ahead and added fraxel laser to her procedure. It just added tightness
to the skin, getting rid of fine lines and wrinkles and any age spots that she’s developed
over the last six or seven years. It took me about a week to start the swelling to go
down. I had a drain tube. Once that was done I could start seeing the changes that Dr.
Gilmer and I had talked about and it looked great and recovery time was minimal. I was
back to work probably in about ten days. How we judge the results of the procedure mostly
by is what the patient thinks. If the patient likes the procedure, if they think that it’s
great then we’re happy. If the patient is not satisfied or if there’s something that
they feel like needs a little bit touch up or whatever it needs, we work on trying to
make that and correct that problem for them. Dr. Gilmer actually has changed my life a
lot, have just made me become a lot more confident woman. For those suffering from eyesight problems,
our next doctor can help. It’s ophthalmologist Dr. Daniel Bregman. I had cataracts and they
got to the point where they were ready to be corrected. Made an appointment with Dr.
Bregman, came up here to Nashville and first had a consult meeting and he explained what
was going to happen and we had to choose what kind of lens you know he was going to implant
because they destroy your lens when they take out the cataracts. Two of the things that
we offer at Eye Health Partners are torque lenses, upgrades to a torque lens or something
called a restore lens. Torque lenses correct astigmatism and astigmatism is when your eye
is shaped like a football instead of a basketball and so a torque lens will correct the astigmatism
so that the distance vision will be clearer. So if someone has astigmatism and they have
just a standard implant put in their eye they will end up having to wear glasses for distance
and up close for reading and computer and distance. And they’re a little bit more
expensive for the restore lens which gives patients the option of being less dependent
on glasses for distance, computer and reading. The restore of course, no glasses so we chose
to get the restore lens. I had the procedure done. They do one eye, a few weeks or a couple
of weeks later I think they did the other eye and you go through all the being careful
and drops and your home free. Here’s the upside to restore lenses and I’ve put in
hundreds of them. The satisfaction rate is close to 100 percent really. I’ve never
had to remove a restore lens from a patient. That means that everybody I’ve put them
in has done great and they’ve been happy with it. And the other upside to the lens
of course is reducing the dependence on glasses after surgery. Nine out of ten patients don’t
need glasses after they have restore lenses. One in ten does and that’s occasionally.
Jim ended up with excellent vision. He was 20/20 near, he was 20/40 intermediate and
he was 20/20 distance and he’s very happy about that. It’s like back to kid stage
again. I don’t wear glasses except when I’m riding that motorcycle and that’s
just to keep the wind out of them. It’s like night and day. If you’ve had a doctor
help change your life we’d love to hear about it. Send us an email at info@bestdocsnetwork.com.
My name is Katy Epley and I’m with Musicians On Call and our mission is to bring live and
recorded music to the bedsides of patients and healthcare facilities. We’re here tonight
taking Ashley Gearing room to room to play music for patients. I’m volunteering tonight
here with Musicians On Call. I sometimes may feel a little goofy walking into a room with
a guitar by myself but then you see the reaction and you see their expression completely changes.
I was prescribed some medicines and it, I had a reaction to it. It weakened the muscles
in my back and I ended up being out of work probably seven months. I had surgery on my
neck, they put a bracket to fuse some joints in my neck but I still had trouble with my
lower back. I was unable to stand up right. The surgeon said there wasn’t much they
could do so they recommended pain management so that’s when I met Dr. Kroll. I told him
that I needed some help with the pain but I didn’t want to be, you know, medicated
to the point that I was just sitting in a chair and staring out the window. In Michael’s
case, he has lumbar spondylosis or what we call facet arthropathy or facet syndrome.
He’s been through multiple treatments and pain management including medications and
physical therapy. And Michael has undergone greater frequency oblation in his lumbar spine
with significant response. Greater frequency oblation is a procedure that we utilize in
pain management and this procedure involves placing a needle inside the patient in a very
specific area where the nerve is traveling. It goes to the arthritic area or the facet
and this needle then is heated at the very tip by a radio frequency energy device that
basically destroys the nerve with heat. That relieved a lot of the pain and since then
he’s been doing that probably every year, I guess the last six or seven years. And he’s
been able to reduce the amount of pain medications that he takes. He describes increased activity
and his quality of life with his family activities and it’s been very successful for him. All
in all he’s helped me where my wife and I can get out and walk and most people don’t
know that I’m really being treated for pain management. Dr. Kroll has given me the ability
to have quality of life even though I’ve got a lot of restrictions with my back. For
the first time in my life being scared of driving at night. I was driving a friend back
from her father’s funeral and we were on I24 where they were doing construction and
I realized that I had a very difficult time in reacting time because there seemed to be
a blockage of my sight. I’ve been wearing glasses since I was in the fifth grade so
I pretty much thought that I would come to find out that I had cataract problems. I looked
for the doctor on my insurance and there was Dr. Bregman. And I had been with a friend
here before so I called and got an appointment and they were able to find out that I did
have cataracts in both eyes. One that was ready for operation and then the second one
that needed a little more time. She would be the sort of a patient where I would look
at their testing preoperatively and look at them and say oh this patient has some astigmatism
and say to them are you interested in being less dependent on your glasses after surgery?
We can correct your astigmatism with this toric lens implant. I didn’t know anything
about the toric lens. I did not know that astigmatism could be corrected in a cataract
surgery so that was an added value because that had been the bane of my visual experience
my whole life. If someone has corneal astigmatism the light that comes into their eye gets focused
on two spots instead of one because their eye is shaped like a football instead of a
basketball and so if you put a standard lens implant into a patient that’s got astigmatism
they will still need glasses to be able to see far away. When someone gets a toric lens
implant they will only have to wear reading glasses to see their computer and to read
after surgery but their distance vision will be clear. That means they can buy non prescription
sunglasses, they can do a lot of things without their glasses. After the surgery, not only
did my cataract problem go away with my right eye at first and then they did my left, I
can see. My life has improved amazingly because of my ability to see and it’s all due to
the surgery and Dr. Bregman. That will wrap up another edition of the Best Docs Network
which features some of the best doctors in the middle Tennessee area that helped change
people’s lives. For more information on any of these outstanding doctor, head to the
website at bestdocsnetwork.com. Please do and if you have a question or comment for
us we want to hear from you, send us an email at info@bestdocsnetwork.com. So long everyone,
we will see you next week.