Knee Doctor Hickory, NC

Are you facing knee replacement surgery, cortisone injections, physical therapy or even stem cell therapy?

There are new alternatives to invasive knee pain treamtment therapies in Hickory, NC that may be able to help you decrease pain and improve your function.

If you suffer with knee pain and live in the greater Hickory, NC area, there are some new alternatives to cortisone injections, Synvisc injections and knee replacement surgery that you need to know about.

If you've been given a knee pain diagnosis, have pain bending you knee, have knee pain and swelling, there is new technology that may be able to help you avoid knee surgery and injections.

Join Dr. Shook as he shares with number two most common cause of knee pain that you don't know about.

You can learn more here: https://youtu.be/Qd0Llm7an_c 

Did you know that there are several causes of knee pain, that you've never heard about? 

In this short video Dr. Shook discusses the most common problem he sees causing knee pain, and some of the advanced knee pain therapies he uses to help decrease knee pain, decrease inflammation, improve range of motion and get people back to doing the things they love.

If you have knee pain, knee arthiritis, and are considering seeing a knee pain specialist in Hickory or the surrounding area then this information  could be very important for you if you are trying to avoid knee injections or knee replacement surgery.

If you have any quesitons please let us know.

Join Dr. Shook in this video as he reviews the third most common cause of knee pain that he sees in practice, and learn some of the advanced approaches he uses to help them.

If you are suffering with knee pain and would like Dr. Shook's opinion to see if he thinks he can help, please call our office at (828) 324-0800.

​If you are unfortunate enough to suffer from a knee condition, you may know all too well how the story goes.

Your knee begins to hurt or is injured. You get diagnosed, maybe physical therapy is recommended. Next, if that doesn't make you worse, oral pain medications and anti-inflammatories are prescribed. Eventually, cortisone (steroids) injections are recommended. Finally, some knee surgery is recommended.

You may even be considering stem cell injections or Synvisc (rooster cone) injections.

The process I just outlined is the typical medical management of knee conditions, and though it helps a lot of people, there are non-surgical and non-invasive alternatives which you and your doctor probably are not familiar.

Therapeutic approaches that use new technology and science provide new alternatives to invasive knee pain treatments.

Some of those therapies include:
-  non-thermal laser therapy
- infrared
- non-surgical pulsed decompression of the knee
- pulsed electromagnetic field therapy
- peripheral nerve therapy
- consideration of your nutritional status and ability to heal

In future blog posts, I'll be going into these approaches in more detail.

If you have knee pain and are considering physical therapy, cortisone or Synvisc injections, or even meniscus surgery or knee replacement, then you may want to consider a consultation with my office to see if you are a candidate for these less invasive approaches.

You can schedule an appointment by calling (828) 324-0800.

So, you think a 5 mph accident where your car has no damage "couldn't hurt anyone?" You think people in low speed collisions are just trying to, "get paid" by an insurance company? How do you think your grandmother, or friend that has a bad neck, or husband that has had a cervical spine fusion where they bolt the bones together would do on this simulator? It's only 5 miles per hour...

There are numerous research studies that show "low speed" collisions cause injury. This is considered low speed, and would not even cause damage to your bumper! Your car would look like nothing happened, but your body could have sustained severe and serious injury.

This is why I work with people that have been in car accidents, and why I use cutting edge diagnostics and scientific literature to help me support people to make the best possible recovery. 

AARP published an article discussing "4 Surgeries to Avoid." One of the surgeries is a "Spinal Fusion for Spinal Stenosis."  This caught my attention because one of the most commonly treated conditions in my office is spinal stenosis.  

Spinal fusion surgeries are very common surgeries, especially when there is significant degeneration and compressed nerves. I see patients on a daily basis that have complications and/or complete failures from these procedures that are looking for anything that could possibly improve their pain from these failed procedures.

In these procedures, the vertebrae are "fused", or bolted and screwed together, and connected by rods.  The idea is that you can keep the bones apart, and make room for the nerves.  

A recent study of medicare patients showed that the number of Spinal Fusion surgery had increased 1,400 percent between 2002 and 2007 although the risks associated with this surgery are very high.  Some of the complications associated with spinal fusions are that the fusion never takes, or does't heal.  In this case you have bones that are broken, in fragments, and there is nothing that can be done.  Other complications are infections, reactions to the anesthesia, nerve damage, and of course death.

Some of the most significant issues when considering these surgeries are:

• You are 3 times more likely to have life threatening complications, than with less invasive surgeries.
• Most of the patients that have had spinal fusions don't do any better with pain or function than those that have physical medicine treatment like physical therapy or chiropractic care.
• Floyd J. Fowler Jr., Ph.D., states, “There is even some evidence that [complex fusion surgery] is worse than other surgeries.” “The vertebrae right above and below the fusion have to do a lot more bending, and it puts stress on your back above and below.”

Dr. Weil, a medical doctor in the Rehabilitation program at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, states “probably less than 5 percent of all back pain requires surgery.”

I tell every patient, go from least invasive to most invasive procedures, and not to skip anything!  With these types of complications, you absolutely must exhaust every option possible or you are putting your health at serious risk

Source: http://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-05-2011/4-surgeries-to-avoid.3.html

We have had several patients that have been told they need surgery, you can listen to their stories here:

Motor vehicle collisions (MVC) have been research for years, and the mechanisms causing damage to the tissues of the spine are well understood.  Many people can suffer with chronic pain for a lifetime after a whiplash injury, but why is that?  Patients routinely tell me that "my x-rays and MRI are negative but I still hurt."  Well, there is a reason for persistent pain after a MVC, and it is the spinal ligaments.  During a whiplash injury the most commonly injured tissues are the facet joint ligaments and spinal discs.  When damaged ligaments of the spine are permanently changed, and in many cases torn which causes them to lengthen, resulting in ligament laxity and joint looseness.  Joint looseness is considered a very big problem when it is excessive.  If your vertebrae slide or bend when you move your neck more than they are supposed to, then you have a significant problem that is some cases has to be stabilized through surgical fusion.  I know that sounds extreme, but in the spine you can't reattach ligaments and stabilize the spine, the anatomy just will not allow it, so you end up with one option... fusion surgery.  

If you are in a car wreck, there are a few things that you need to have done:

1. Get your spinal ligaments checked through a stress x-ray study.  (You have to stress the ligaments to see if they are torn, this is about the only way unless you have access to an upright MRI.
2. Measurement  of spinal stability with CRMA is a must.  You can learn more on my website here, We are one of the only clinics in Western North Carolina using research based and validated software to check for spinal instabilities after MVCs.  Not even the hospitals in my area do this analysis, and it is straight from spinal biomechanics research and used in the AMA Guidelines to Impairment 5th and 6th editions.  If you haven;t had this done, it is a huge hole in your work-up because spinal ligament tears are the most common injury.
3. If you are having radiating pain into the arms or neck pain that is getting worse you may need to have electrodiagnostic studies (EMG.NCV) and/or an MRI.

Whatever you do, make sure that your condition is not minimized by ER or you primary care physicians.  These doctors are not spinal injury specialists, just as I am not an ER physician.  Get your spinal ligaments checked if you are in a car wreck.  If you have questions and are looking for a provider to help you, let me know, I may be able to help you find someone.
Dr. Shook is a spinal ligament injury specialist practicing in Hickory, NC.  His office is Hickory Spine, and he can be reached at (828) 324-0800.

After I share this information with you, you may be upset because no one ever told you this, and it may be to late for you to go back. I see patients on a daily basis that are trying to avoid spinal surgery.  We use a variety of evidence based treatments, and have had great success with neck and lower back disc herniation and bulging discs with a treatment we offer called non-surgical spinal decompression therapy.  You should view the testimonials and the end of this blog post and listen to just a few of the testimonials our patients have given us due to their success with spinal decompression therapy.  When you are going through the medical management of a spinal condition like a disc herniation or bulging disc, you need to know what your options are, and you need to make sure you don't skip a step, because if you do, cost and risk goes up.

This is a common protocol for the treatment of a spinal disc herniation that takes you from least invasive and least cost, to most invasive and most cost.

1. Physical medicine treatment: chiropractic or physical therapy
2. Oral medications
3. Pain injections, typically cortisone epidurals
4. Discectomy
5. Laminectomy
6. Spinal fusion
7. Spinal cord simulator implant

If your doctor recommends that you skip one of these steps, there needs to be a good reason, or you are putting yourself at greater risk with higher cost.  I wanted to share this protocol because I've met numerous patients over the years that never had these options presented to them, and they ended up with a surgery that was not successful and now have long-term pain and disability. Sometimes spinal surgeries aren't successful, and it's not that they are bad, actually I'm very thankful we have them because they can be absolutely lifesaving.  The problem comes when conservative options are skipped, and a surgery is performed that is not favorable, and then you can;t go back and try the conservative options you should have exhausted initially.  Make sure you exhaust all your options before having surgery.