WRCBtv.com | Chattanooga News, Weather & SportsX Stop Blocks Back Pain

X Stop Blocks Back Pain

(NBC/WRCB) - Dr. Terry Reisman is taking a pain-free walk with his wife Marcia. This wasn't possible a few months ago.

"I was walking bent over because that would relieve the pressure on the spine," said Reisman. "I had really bad pains down my buttocks and hips and all the way down both legs to my calves, so I was really uncomfortable."

That made Reisman an ideal candidate for X-Stop, the only FDA approved device for alleviating lumbar stenosis, a common cause of back pain as we age.

"As the bones degenerate, the discs degenerate, the disc space collapses, the opening where the nerves exit as you see here gets smaller. All that encroaches in the nerves," said Dr. Sergio Gonzalez-Arias, a Neurosurgeon. 

The X-Stop spacer is used to decompress the constricted area without cutting bone. This small device is simply placed between the bones in the back.

"It's moveable; it's not fixated; it's not a fusion," said Gonzalez-Arias. "It's meant to only prevent the extension at the level, so if you try to do that, you can't bring those bones closer together because you have a stop in between so X-Stop extension prevention. So it opens up the canal and the nerves are relieved of the pain very often and the patients' symptoms improve."

Five weeks after surgery, Reisman tells his surgeon he's feeling 100 percent better. He only has a small incision.

"I'm driving a car, back to work at the end of two weeks," said Reisman. "Walking. Doing physical rehab."

X Stop candidates are patients with mild to moderate stenosis age 50 and over with good bone density. The doctor in this report says 85 percent of his patients get relief from their pain.

This procedure is available in our area at Chattanooga Neurosurgery.