Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
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, I'm Kandace Krueger along with Jim Knox and
we're back again with another edition of the Best Docs Network featuring some of the best
doctors in all of the Nashville area that are changing people's lives. Exactly right
Kandace, like our first best doctor, one of the best in the Nashville area, it's Dr. Dan
Burval. My job is a guitar player for Mark Chesnutt and back in January I noticed that
I was starting to have some leg pain, some nerve pain shooting down my whole leg which
was causing me trouble to get around, trouble on stage, I was limping. Delaney came to see
me early this spring. He was having a tremendous amount of pain in his back and particularly
his left leg and this was really causing him some problems. He was even having to start
taking some narcotics. We took some x-ray's in the office and it actually showed that
he was born with a weakening in his bone that allowed the bone to slip forward in his lower
part of his spine which kinked off the nerves which created that tremendous leg pain he
was having. When I arrived here to see Dr. Burval on my first visit he was very explanatory,
he would sit down with me and in layman terms tell me exactly what was going on, what was
going to have to happen, what we could do to extend my wait time before I had surgery.
He said I would definitely have to have surgery, just a matter of when. We worked together,
he was on tour a lot, he couldn't take a lot of time away from surgery. We really tried
to get him better and functional without doing surgery first. We did some exercises and physical
therapy to get his back muscles strong trying to stabilize that back. We did some nerve
injections trying to get that nerve to shrink to calm down a little bit so that pain in
the leg would go away. And it did help him temporarily. He was able to complete a tour
during the summer without any neurological consequences and then we ultimately decided
that surgery was best for him to give him a permanent cure, get him back into his life
and we did surgery later this year. In August, August the 14th as a matter of fact I had
surgery. I was in the hospital for recovery for four days which he expected me to be there
longer but released me. Five weeks later he releases me to go back to work and he told
me you are way ahead of the curve, I am very impressed. I am very pleased with how Delaney
did. He gave 100 percent effort just like I give 100 percent effort and we got a great
outcome out of it. I am fortunate enough to be back out on the road doing my thing picking
and grinning and I'm loving every minute of it. We are one million strong. We are united
behind a cure. There are over one million colorectal cancer survivors in the United
States. My name is Charles Kelley from Lady Antebellum and I'm in this fight against colorectal
cancer because it actually hits pretty close to my family. My father-in-law was diagnosed
with it and the thing about this disease is it is preventable. And so I encourage everybody
to go get screened, let's beat this thing. For addition health information, be sure to
check out our Healthy Living blog for the best tips, latest medical procedures and up
to date news for modern medicine at our website at bestdocsnetwork.com. When I was three
years old I fell off of a top bunk, broke my back and my collar bone and they didn't
know that I hurt my back. And then when I was 20 I started having back problems and
the doctor did x-rays and he said I had a bulging disc but it was very mild. In 1997
is when I fell off a deck at work and tore my rotary cuff and broke my arm and broke
my ankle and reinjured my back and I've been in chronic pain ever since. When Florence
came in I took a history on her, I examined her, I reviewed her prior medical records
that I got from her family doctor and we formulated a patient specific plan for her. He was the
third physician that said there was nothing they could do surgically to help my back.
So then he recommended the spinal cord stimulator. After giving her a chance to really look into
the procedure and learn about it, I showed that she was an ideal candidate for the therapy.
We brought her into the office and we did a spinal cord stimulator trial in the office.
So she came back into the office after a 5 day trial very happy and very much wanting
to have the permanent device implanted. It's implanted in my body, you can't see anything
on the outside. I have a wireless control that charges the battery and I also have a
wireless control that I can control the sensation, you know I can increase it, I can decrease
it. I can turn it on, I can turn it off. So far I've had it on 24, 7 because it is so
wonderful. I'm not taking any pain medication. I'm completely off of it and it is wonderful.
I feel like I have waken up. She's a very happy, happy patient and how gratifying is
that? You know you reached out and did something that changed someone's life. All of the doctors
here at the Best Docs Network are dedicated to changing people's lives like our next best
doctor, it's endodontist Dr. Graham Locke. I was experiencing some difficulty with some
pain in my tooth. It was just a feeling, it wasn't really painful but it was just, I just
knew it was there. When you look at the x-rays in Jean's case, it looks pretty standard,
a silver filling, not a lot of gross decay or anything along those lines. Constantly
we have to monitor and test and diagnose exactly what's going on because symptoms are coming
from somewhere and x-rays are 2 dimensional and only one of the tests of many different
tests that we use to determine whether a tooth is infected and needing a root canal. I'd
never had a root canal before and I was you know a little nervous about it. So he explained
to me about IV sedation and I decided that that was probably a really viable option for
me. Some people just require the local anesthesia, some require the gas, some want oral sedation
and some want IV sedation. We tailor the sedation, whatever it might be to that person's needs.
One of the benefits in this office you know was she never felt the injections in her mouth,
she never felt claustrophobic under the rubber dam and it allows us to do that more thoroughly
as well as protect the airway. When I was given the IV I did feel the initial prick
and that was the only thing that I felt from then on. Working under the microscope once
we removed the silver filling, we found a crack and there was a slight vertical crack
in her tooth that did not show up on the x-ray, so using the microscope you can see down the
root canal system many times to the tip of the root internally. It's almost as if you're
inside the tooth walking around and without that you don't have that benefit, it's a guess.
The procedure was completed and afterwards I was awake, I was aware of what was going
on around me. I was wheeled in the wheelchair into a privacy elevator towards the back of
the office and taken downstairs and my husband was in the car waiting for me and I was helped
into the car and we went home. External counter pulsation, what is that? It's otherwise known
as ECP therapy and it's a fabulous way of helping grow coronary arteries, renewing the
blood flow to the heart when many times that blood flow has failed because of coronary
blockage. Many patients are affected by coronary artery disease or plaque involving the arteries
to the heart and the blood flow diminishes and sometimes people have heart attack. So
the way that we can fix this is by placing a stent or doing angioplasty to those arteries.
Sometimes we have to send patients for surgery for bypass surgery to help renew the blood
flow to the heart. But there are many patients who are not candidates for either one of those
and they can only take medications. But now we have something called ECP therapy, external
counter pulsation, where the patient lays on a bed for one hour treatment with massage
therapy to the legs which improves blood flow to the heart, it's timed to the cardiac cycle.
With that therapy five days a week for seven weeks patients can really experience improved
blood flow, improved energy, improved symptomatology. It's just an amazing way of increasing blood
flow to the heart. Ask your doctor about ECP. It's great. I was very active. I played racquetball,
I walked. When the pain in my hip got to be problematic I decided that maybe I should
then in fact. We had gone to visit a friend in the neighborhood. We had walked down there,
had a seat on the couch and then when it was time to leave I couldn't get off the couch.
Susan came to see me because her hip was bothering her pretty severely. It started not quite
so bad but as she walked and she moved around it began bothering her more and more. When
we evaluated her we got x-rays and the x-rays demonstrated something called avascular necrosis
which is a process in which the blood supply to a part of the hip gets interrupted and
so the bone in that part of the hip dies and it leads fairly quickly to a severe arthritic
process in the hip and once that takes place it acts just like a badly arthritic hip. The
solution to this as you know, we would do a hip replacement. Well at that point in my
life I was just stunned. I didn't think myself to be of an age that would require hip replacement
but the x-rays and MRI's didn't lie. Avascular necrosis is not something that we can put
back or change and so once the pain becomes bad enough, the option is to replace that
hip and that's what we did for Susan. The recovery time from the surgery itself was
a six week period. Premier Orthopaedics Rehab center was convenient to me so I just came
right over here and finished out my rehab strategy and then got back to life as I'd
known it. We're able to return people to near normal if not normal lifestyles by getting
rid of the pain associated with a badly arthritic hip and that in fact is what happened with
Susan. His staff, his nurses here at Premier have just been, you couldn't ask for anybody
any nicer than they have been or more helpful. Don't forget, for more information on any
of these outstanding doctors you see on today's show, head to the website, bestdocsnetwork.com.
And now we're going to head to our next best doctor, it's bariatric surgeon Dr. Douglas
Olsen. Well, I've had some rather serious medical conditions. I was diabetic, had to
have a hip replacement and the doctor had told me that there was nothing left that he
could do for my back, that the arthritis had fused the vertebras together so I desperately
needed to lose weight. Well, I was very supportive of Bill because he had so many medical issues.
I also had a lot of medical issues, but not nearly as severe as he did. And one of my
co-workers had been here and had a lap band procedure and she had lost 80 pounds in a
rather short period of time so I said what in the world have you done? And she said,
I went to Centennial Medical. One of the strengths of our program is that we do all of the procedures.
We try to allow the patient to make the decision for what procedure they think best suits their
needs. Certainly help guiding them in that decision but allowing them to make that decision
once they've been appraised of all of the intricacies of the different operations that
are available. I started coming to support group with Bill and we would come at least
twice a month. After about three months going from saying I would never have weight loss
surgery, I was all for it. Some of the results that we see with appropriate weight loss is
people being totally off all their medications, clearly off diabetes medicines. Within six
months of my surgery and losing weight I was only on one prescription. No more diabetic
medicine, no more high blood pressure medicine, so it's like a whole new world for us. We're
best friends, we're hardly ever apart. We like to be together and we like to do things
together and with our health, it was becoming more and more difficult to do anything. I
feel twenty years younger because I felt like I was ten years older than what I am. Couldn't
hardly walk, we never walked anywhere. We just didn't, we weren't active at all. We'd
sit on the couch and now we go to the zoo, we love to walk. We go to the rec center and
work out. We're having a great time. My diabetes is almost totally under control by diet alone.
Had almost a perfect blood test the last time I saw the doctor. I feel like going to work.
I feel like a new man. How do you know if you have carpal tunnel syndrome? The carpal
tunnel is a little tunnel that a nerve goes through in your wrist. And people who have
carpal tunnel syndrome will generally awake in the middle of the night with their hands
being numb, their fingers will tingle. Sometimes that tingling will go up their arms. Now generally
it goes away when they wake up and they shake their arms, mainly because they're changing
the position. When we're asleep our hands tend to go like this and that cuts off that
carpal tunnel and pinches the little nerve that's in there, it's called the median nerve.
That gives you the tingling in your fingers and sometimes up the median nerve into your
arm. So one way to prevent it is to sleep with splints or ace bandages that keep your
wrists at a neutral or up position instead of letting them collapse like this. Also we
see a lot of carpal tunnel syndrome in people who have gained a lot of weight because that
puts pressure on the inside of that tunnel. Also there's something about diabetes that
affects that nerve. But in general if you wake up with your fingers tingling at night,
it's not your circulation, it's probably your carpal tunnel. Lots of easy ways to fix that,
so don't panic, just get it checked. For additional Medical Minutes from Dr. Honaker, logon to
bestdocsnetwork.com, click on Education and the Medical Minute tab. I had my surgery at
a very early age considering the time of which I had my surgery, I was 26 at the time. And
I come from a family of obese individuals and have lots of complications, diabetes,
high cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease and I had tried every diet. I hit
200 pounds when I was 12 years old and I never left. The ideal candidate for bariatric surgery
is a patient that has body mass index greater than 40, medical conditions related to morbid
obesity, failure of medical treatment, dietary behavior modification. I had never had surgery
before. This was my first experience ever having anesthesia or having surgery. I had
a ton of support from other bariatric patients from the faculty here at Centennial and from
my family as well. She continues not to follow up so much with the physicians office because
she's doing great in not having any medical conditions but she does continue to come to
support group, meet with the dieticians and exercise physiology and group follow up. The
after care support groups here are phenomenal. It really means a lot to the patients to be
able to sit in a room with people who have been where I have been and people who have
experienced the same things that I have. It's also nice on the post op side to be able to
come back and to support those patients that are at an earlier stage in their journey and
to be able to pay it forward to those other patients. Paula had great results with her
gastric bypass and it was the best operation for her after we had had our initial consultation.
She's had very good weight loss and I think Paula's also had plastic surgery procedures
to remove some of her excess weight. And so she has continued to you know keep her weight
off. She has remained active and healthy and off many medications that she was taking prior
to surgery. I went zip lining in Mexico and I looked at the sign and thought two years
ago I would have exceeded that weight limit and would have to sit here while everybody
else had fun so it has opened up a whole new world and a whole new life that I never would
have known before. Don't forget, for more information on any of the great doctors you
see on today's show, head to the website, bestdocsnetwork.com. Also right now it's time
to head to our next best doctor, it's Dr. Peter Kroll. 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 out 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. Then Michael has undergone
radiofrequency ablation in his lumbar spine with significant response. Radiofrequency
ablation 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. Welcome. Today we're joined by Dr. Denton Cooley, a
native Houstonian and the actual founder of the Texas Heart Institute. What a pleasure
to be with you today Dr. Cooley. Thank you for joining us. You're welcome and thank you
for visiting our institution. Can you tell us a little background about how the Texas
Heart Institute became an entity? Well it I think began in the mid 1950's when open
heart surgery was first introduced in our Texas Medical Center and before long my program
here at St. Luke's and Children's Hospital was probably the most prolific of all institutions
in the country including the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic and everything. We had a
simplified technique of open heart surgery and soon began a leadership position in this
new field of cardiac surgery. Well then I decided to create this institute in 1962 so
it's been a little over 50 years ago. What is your most vivid memory about the Texas
Heart Institute, about any type of incredible learning that has been occurring here, what's
your greatest memory? Well of course our heart institute was created with two objectives,
that is, research and education. So in each of those aspects of our history I think there
are certain exciting things that have happened. And when the Texas Heart Institute first came
into being cardio thoracic surgery was high on the list of available procedures to be
done for patients. Now we have the artificial heart and the LVAD's and so would you tell
the audience about that? Well I think that it shows the evolution of cardiac surgery.
First we started off replacing just some of the components of the human heart, that is
the valves and the great vessels and modifying the ventricles and that sort of thing. And
then the big breakthrough came in 1968 when we did the first successful heart transplant
to replace the entire organ and that was really an exciting period that followed that because
it was such a new concept. Amazing, right? And we have actual volunteers here at the
hospital who have been survivors from cardiac transplants for about 20 years now. Oh yes,
our initial work in transplantation, we did I think about 15 or 20 heart transplants in
that early era. But so many of these patients suffered from rejection of the tissues, but
in the early 1980's a new breakthrough came with the development of a drug called cyclosporine
which is still in use today and has made it possible for some patients to survive transplantation
for 20 or 30 years so it's a really big change. Quite miraculous and you are such a part of
that endeavor and we humbly thank you for everything you've done for the world population
actually. Well, there's a great satisfaction to me to see how this institution and our
whole medical center has grown during my lifetime. Thank you and now we're taking you again all
over the world with Best Docs Network and we just wonder if you have something in these
closing remarks that you can tell our public something about the Texas Heart Institute
that you would like them to take to heart. Well I think that we have done a great deal
to reach our objective, original objective of research and education and at the same
time we have made many advances in just clinical medicines and surgery and have enjoyed a leadership
position in this new development now that has sort of inspired the entire medical community
around the world and you can find large cardiac programs going in Europe, in South America
and elsewhere in North America. It's just amazing to see how rapidly it's expanded.
Well for all of us who have trained under your great leadership, we humbly thank you
and we give you great honor Dr. Cooley. Thank you for being with us today. Well, thank you.
Well that'll do it, that'll wrap up another edition of the Best Docs Network featuring
some of the best doctors in all of the Nashville area that are changing people's lives. Exactly
right Kandace, and the good news is, for the folks watching out there for more information,
they can head to the website, bestdocsnetwork.com. And if you have a question or comment for
us, we'd love to hear from you. Send us an email at info@bestdocsnetwork.com. So long
everyone, we will see you next week.