Back on track: How surgery helped a visitor from America get free from pain
“I had actually just gotten to the UK,” Brandon recalls. “I’d been there for a day, and woke up in immense pain. I had no idea what it was.”
Unsure of what the cause was, Brandon booked a massage in the hope that it would help. It didn’t and, over the next few days, his neck got worse. Desperate to put a stop to the pain, Brandon’s search for a solution widened.
“Eventually it got so bad I went to an NHS walk-in clinic,” he says. “They gave me a TENS unit (a device that uses low-voltage electrical currents to relieve pain),” Brandon winces slightly at the memory, “I wasn't sleeping – I was losing my mind.”
A chance breakthrough
Things looked bleak, but a chance call between one of Brandon’s friends and her mother led to a breakthrough.
“My friend called her mom and she sent me to see her GP,” he says. “I went to see her, and she was great. She immediately said, ‘You're not OK, you're getting an MRI’. I was in an MRI scanner within an hour.”
As well as pushing through this timely intervention, the GP referred Brandon to Mr Irfan Malik, a consultant spine surgeon who works at The Harley Street Clinic. “She knew Mr Malik really well,” Brandon continues, “She said he was the best in his field, and got me an appointment the next day.”
“I could see Mr Zuck sitting in the clinic,” explains Mr Malik. “He was leaning to one side as he couldn’t maintain a normal posture. At that point, I thought, ‘This is someone in terrible pain.”
With the results from Brandon’s MRI already with him, Mr Malik could see that Brandon was suffering from a slipped disc in his neck (referred to as the “cervical spine”). This was pressing on a nerve, causing the pain and subsequent numbness.
“Brandon explained to me that there was no relief, from the pain,” Mr Malik recalls. “He’d not had any sleep for a week.”
With Brandon desperate to find a solution, Mr Malik suggested a more conservative treatment path at first, namely a nerve blocking injection. Having been to several doctors already and been prescribed painkillers that hadn’t helped, Brandon was reluctant to go down any route other than surgery. And pain wasn’t the only consideration by this point.
“Brandon was also losing the strength in his arm,” recalls Mr Malik, “and was experiencing some numbness as well, which was also significantly affecting his quality of life.” He pauses for a second before continuing, “He actually said he’d rather have his arm chopped off rather than live with the pain.”
Decision time
With the decision in place to treat Brandon with surgery, Mr Malik put preparations in place for a cervical disc decompression procedure. This would then take the pressure off the nerve and allow Mr Malik to replace the old disc with a new one.
“Cervical fusion (ACDF) is a more common operation,” says Mr Malik of his decision, “but by fusing the spine, you can increase the pressure on the adjacent vertebrae. A replacement avoids this.
“Brandon’s a young man,” he continues, “with symptoms affecting one side of his body, so I felt the best way to avoid any possible future problems was to give him a new disc.”
This wasn’t the only decision to be made, however. Mr Malik also elected to perform an anterior surgery – accessing the disc from Brandon’s front. “Going in from the back means you can hide the scar,” explains Mr Malik of his decision, “but there are a lot of important muscles supporting the neck, and damaging those can cause more neck pain in the future. Plus, an anterior approach is actually a more direct route if you want to tackle a disc that’s pressing on the nerve.”
A pain-free future
The surgery took less than an hour, with no complications, and the results were immediate. “He felt a significant relief when I saw him afterwards,” recalls Mr Malik. “He seemed a much happier man.”
And indeed he was.
“It was great,” says Brandon thinking back to the care he received after his operation. “Everybody was really attentive, and while I was a bit blurry there coming out of anaesthetic, I felt really well taken care of.
“Mr Malik was very comforting throughout,” he continues. “Before the operation, he was very confident, very knowledgeable, and answered all my questions. I was a wreck at that time, and he was very patient with me, which was really helpful.”
After a night in the ITU and another on the ward, Brandon returned to his friends’ place, where he rested up until he was able to return to the States two weeks later. Now safely back home, Brandon has now started a programme of physiotherapy to support his recovery.
Smiling and demonstrative as he recalls his experience, Brandon is understandably thrilled to have those weeks of unbearable pain behind him. And while it certainly wasn’t the holiday he’d hoped for, in some ways, he feels like he was fortunate to be treated here.
“The level of care and attentiveness I got at a small private hospital, was great – so focused. Everybody there was so accommodating, and right on top of everything the whole time. They were great.”
This content is intended for general information only and does not replace the need for personal advice from a qualified health professional.