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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 there 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 physicians in the Nashville area that are helping to change people’s
lives. Exactly this is a show about doctors as Kandace said in the middle Tennessee area
that definitely helped change people’s lives, like our first doctor, Dr. James Renfro. 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 doc, I don’t know if I really want 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 check him out again, 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 I guess again 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. Lisa weighed over
300 pounds but look at her now. She credits Dr. Olsen in helping her change her life.
To find out more about Lisa’s story and other life changing stories, log on to bestdocsnetwork.com.
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 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. 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
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. 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.
Let’s talk about your bones. Bone health is very important, especially in women. You
can get osteoporosis, that’s very thin bones. And also there’s mildly thin bones which
we call osteopenia. Now what causes this and who’s at risk for bone thinning? Well, generally
it’s females. We often see it in Asian people as well as people with very thin bones and
low weight, under 126 pounds. People with red hair, blue eyes, freckles and fair skin,
they tend to get a lot of osteoporosis and a lot of osteopenia. The way you diagnose
this is through a bone density scan that should be done at your doctor’s office. Now if
you do have osteopenia or osteoporosis you need to be on calcium and Vitamin D. Generally
600 milligrams of calcium twice a day and 400 international units of Vitamin D twice
a day. If you take it all at once that’s not going to do the trick, half of it will
go out in your urine. You must take the daily dose and split it in half. Take half in the
morning and half in the evening, that way it will get into your bones very well. 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
down 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. Don’t forget
for more information on any of the great doctors you see on today’s show, here’s the place
to go, it’s to the website, bestdocsnetwork.com, that’s bestdocsnetwork.com. And right now
Kandace, it is time to go to our next best doctor. You bet it is, it’s plastic surgeon
Dr. Ronald Gilmer. Well the tuba augmentation is probably the latest technique for inserting
breast implants either premuscular or submuscular. That means on top of the muscle or underneath
the muscle and it’s going through the belly button or the embalacus and it’s called
tuba which means transumbilical breast augmentation. And by going through the belly button the
operation is quicker, its less painful, less complications, has no scars on the chest.
I have been to Dr. Gilmer several times. I’ve had a tummy tuck. I have had liposuction.
There was one thing missing. I had to get breast implants. I told him oh I wanted to
be a small C , this is what I wanted. He looked at me and he said Keisha, you’re going to
need more than a small C because I had lost so much weight and had so much skin. He told
me what I was going to have, he told me what to expect so that it wasn’t such a shock
to me when I woke up and here they were. And you go from having nothing to hello. If a
patient wants a silicone implant inserted, you can’t put a silicone implant through
the embalacus, it has to be a saline implant. And when we talk to the patient about it we
tell them how we’re going to do it. By making an incision around the embalacus we will create
a tunnel and then create a pocket either above the muscle or below the muscle to insert the
implant. We put sizers in. And sizers are like implants that we put in, blow up, check
out the pocket, make sure the pocket’s correct. We’ll remove the sizers and then the regular
implant is deflated and we roll it up like a little taco and slide it into the pocket
that we’ve developed into the larger pocket for the implant. And then we have an inflation
valve. We inflate the implant to the size that we think’s appropriate. And then we
pull the inflation valve out. After the surgery, I woke up, looked down, and of course there
they were. The gift that he gave me and I thought it was the best thing ever. I am pleased
with everything. He has really truly given me what I have dreamed of and what I thought
I could never have. For several years playing sports and doing different things I had damaged
my shoulder and it got to a point to where I could not sleep at night and the pain was
not getting any better. I went to Dr. Baxter for a visit and he said well we’ll try a
cortisone shot and that helped me for a week or so. Dr. Baxter was very frank with me and
he said, Jimmy you really need surgery on your shoulder. Jimmy came to me with shoulder
pain and he had had it for about 6 months or so and we x-rayed his shoulder and x-ray’s
looked good, no arthritis and so we tried an injection and we tried him on some prescription
medication. He came back and really hadn’t had a minimal response to that and so then
we ordered an MRI and the MRI showed a torn rotator cuff in his shoulder. When I was talking
to Dr. Baxter I wanted to make sure that we could do the simplest process so I could get
back to work and rehab as quick as possible. After talking with Jimmy about his options
and deciding that surgery was the best option for him, the kind of surgery we do for this
is arthroscopic surgery which most people may know it as scope surgery but it’s basically
minimally invasive surgery. And so we’re able to go into the shoulder and fix his rotator
cuff tendon through very small incisions, usually two or three small incisions and it’s
an outpatient surgery. It takes about an hour and he ended up with very good results. The
rehab process, it took four or five weeks and I was able to heal properly. My shoulder
now is stronger than it’s been since I was in my twenties. My range of motion, the things
I can do and I sleep great at night. The thing about shoulder surgery is that we can really
help people and it’s really rewarding to be able to help people and to just be able
to resume the activities that they wish to resume. The whole process was incredible.
I truly believe in him and his staff. Before I came to Centennial and Dr. Houston I was
335 pounds so I had a lot of trouble if I was out doing anything outside physically
as far as being somebody that could go long distances or do things for the children. We
went to Universal Studios and to Disney World and of course the big thing at Universal is
the Harry Potter ride, the Harry Potter theme park and before surgery I could not ride that
ride, I was too big. Well the first step is we like to see all patients come through our
informational seminars. It really goes A-Z about bariatric surgery, what it entails,
what the risk of the surgery are, what the outcomes are and what to expect long term.
And then once they get through that process they come to our office and we spend an hour,
hour and a half going through what their medical conditions are, what surgery might fit them
best, try to mold one of the four surgeries in to their eating habits, their age, their
medical problems and try to find which one you know suits them better and which one their
more comfortable with. Once you make that decision to have the surgery, I mean it’s
a permanent lifestyle change that you’ve got to embrace. We have wonderful dietitians
on staff, exercise physiologists, we have support groups, we have psychological aftercare
programs to help the patients deal with the emotional side of eating. Having that motivator
with the surgery and knowing that by doing the extra exercises obviously going to increase
and make your weight loss you know a success. You have the exercise physiologist here that
you know works with you to make sure that you’re doing what you need to do. The nutritionist
is certainly going to help to lay out a plan for you, what you can eat, things you need
to avoid. And both of those things you have access to even if you’re not in an appointment
you can call up here and talk to them, you can email them. If you need to stop by while
you’re in Nashville, you can certainly make an appointment with them. That is a huge plus
that you have here at Centennial. Six months out I’ve lost 145 pounds and I was telling
my wife the other night who weighs less than that you know I said just to think that I
used to carry you plus some around. I said you know now I struggle just to pick you up
and hold you up in the air for thirty seconds you know and now whenever I hit my one year
mark in October my wife and I both are going down for the surgiversary. That’s what I’m
going to treat myself to is riding the Harry Potter ride. I was 21 years old when I was
diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer and when you confront your own mortality you realize
what am I going to leave behind? I’m never going to have children, I might not see my
husband grow old, what have I done? I’m sitting here today with tumors in my liver,
my lungs and my bones. But I’m sitting here with hope. My name is Bridget Spence. I am
Susan G. Komen For The Cure. Help cure breast cancer and save women’s lives. My pain is
basically from degenerative disc disease. I have about five discs that are involved
in that and then I have two bulging discs and one protruding disc. But at the same time
I had a busted hip and two bad knees from playing college football. So trigger points
actually often develop in patients who have chronic musculoskeletal syndrome disorders.
It’s also very common in patients who have repetitive work injuries or hobbies that require
repetitive muscle contraction. Sometimes with acute trauma you can also get you know irritation
and stress on those muscles as well so trigger points can develop in those situations. When
I met Dr. Rome you know I mentioned the pain and I told her it felt like a trigger point
but all the other people that I talked to in the last year or so said that you don’t
have trigger points at that level and she felt and said you do have the trigger point
here and I said thank God you know that somebody finally has taken the time to listen to me.
And I asked her would she treat it and she said absolutely and she went and got a syringe
and injected it with pain killer and I imagine at least 60 percent or more of my back pain
that I had had for five years went away that day. One of the first things that I noticed
about Ed is that he had some significant myofascial pain symptoms in his back. He had several
trigger points that I noted in his lumbar paraspinal area and we were going to treat
that with trigger point injections. Ed so far has received significant benefit from
his first and second trigger point injections. We plan on following that up with a series
of two or three more and hopefully that will eliminate the myofascial problem. He also
has some symptoms from his degenerative disc disease and he’s going to be following up
in the CPS clinic for lumbar epidural steroid injections as well to help those symptoms.
I’m carrying out the trash, I’m mowing the grass, I don’t have to carry this cane
anymore to walk and just think the world of her for listening to me. My life has been
changed since that day. At Apex Endodontics we’re very quality centered. All of us are
former general dentists and so we understand when a patient comes in not only the root
canal aspect of the treatment for the patient but also the restoration of the tooth so that
they are able to maintain a healthy smile and also be able to function properly and
ultimately chew their food and receive nutrition. Having that on our resume it kind of we can
better appreciate what the referring dentist might expect when it’s coming in. Sometimes
it’s hard to express things to you or what they want but when we’re doing the restorative
aspect of a root canal or we’re finished with the root canal or prior to doing the
root canal we can kind of appreciate what the general dentist is probably looking for
when we’re done. I was impressed with the fact that we do IV sedation. We have a wheelchair
lift in the back office to accommodate the patients after the IV sedation. We also give
oral sedation and Dr. Locke just kind of goes out of his way to really try to accommodate
every personality that he can. At Apex Endodontics we focus on quality treatments for our patients.
What that would mean to us is utilization of cutting edge technology whether it be microscopes
in our treatment and diagnosis but also any and all techniques that have been researched
and are on the cutting edge of endodontics as well. We’re all very up to date as far
as techniques and also the technologies that we utilize. A lot of the things that we do
I don’t think that a lot of people can do. When patients come in a lot of times a tooth
is a little bit further compromised than what we would like but we are able to get in there
and isolate the area and a last ditch effort we are able to save the tooth of the patient.
A lot of the restorative aspects I don’t think that a lot of the general dentists can
do. We’re taking that variable out of the picture for them and we’re able to save
teeth that otherwise probably couldn’t be saved. I chose to be an endodontist because
ultimately we are able to maintain the person’s dentition and save teeth and also give them
a healthier smile. 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.
Well Jim, that’ll do it, that’ll wrap up another edition of the Best Docs Network
featuring some of the best physicians in the Nashville area that have helped change people’s
lives. And how about some good news? For more information on any of the great doctors, head
to the website, it’s bestdocsnetwork.com, that is bestdocsnetwork.com to find one of
the right doctors for you. You bet and if you have a question or comment for us please
send us an email. You can reach us at info@bestdocsnetwork.com. So long everyone, we will see you next week.