All in a day's work...

Whoa! That's some scoliosis! We see and fix a lot of these in the practice.

The next few pics are of a different patient than above with severe degenerative disc disease. Ouch. As you may or may not be able to tell, there is supposed to be a disc space at that level, instead of bone on bone.

And you can probably see the disc better here on MRI. It is the flat black bulging one.

And, here's how you fix it! This person required a 2 level fusion because the disc above was also contributing to the pain. Between the screws you can see the bone spacers we put in the front.

And that's how it's done folks. Mission accomplished. FYI: The thing on the left is an implantable battery pack that helps stimulate bone to grow.
WARNING:
The next few pictures contain actual surgical footage. View at your own risk. Chub, you better be sitting down in a low chair with some catchers ready.

Here is a surgical picture, different case than above. This is an iliac crest (hip bone where your belt sits) we cut a chunk out of to put in someone's neck in place of their disc.

Bzzz, sawing away. The noise is acually hellacious and burning bone doesn't smell the best either.

Ah, the finished product. We will then go on to reconstruct the iliac crest with cadaver bone, and insert this baby into the disc space in the neck. Awesome. I wish I had some xrays of a postsurgical neck, but I don't, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

And that's some of what I do on a day to day basis. Pretty sweet if you ask me.