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- Welcome my friends to the Bob and Brad podcast
produced by Bob and Brad,
the two most famous physical therapists on the internet.
I am Bob and I'm exactly one half of the Bob, Brad team,
the better half if you ask me.
Today we have a real special guest.
He is a board-certified neurosurgeon. Yes.
Well, Inspired Spine is the best way to get ahold of a him,
inspiredspine.com.
And he does a new procedure that, fairly new,
and he's done a lot of these,
as a very non-invasive surgery.
So he holds both an MD and a PhD,
and he was one of the first 30 surgeons in the United States
to perform this ground breaking surgery.
So we'll be talking about all of that,
we'll be talking about what patients would benefit from this
and whether or not you would qualify
for this type of surgery.
Dr. Abbasi, thank you so much
for coming on our program today.
- My pleasure.
- We got a lot of subjects to talk about today.
A lot of things to go over.
So I thought we'd go ahead and get started.
Now you have a video out called
A Brief Natural History of the Spine.
- Yes.
- And we'll put a link below.
I found that very interesting,
talking about the whole process,
and controlling expectations.
I mean, do you want to talk about it at all?
- Absolutely. I think, I, as a surgeon,
I am the last link to change somebody's life
who is falling off the cliff.
- Right.
- And many times, people can avoid
falling off the cliff altogether.
As matter of fact, that is what Kayla does for us.
They put a healthy lifestyle, protocols, nutrition,
exercises, together to change a natural trend of all of us
to get old or slow down the aging process of the spine.
Then I ask people,
when is the maximum capacity of the spine?
When is the maximum vitality of the spine?
Most of my patients tell me, when you're into your twenties,
because they see most of the athletes in their twenties.
- Right.
- But if you really want to know
when is the maximum capacity of the spine,
look at the Olympic gymnasts.
- Right.
- [Dr. Abbasi] Everyone between 12 (indistinct)
- Quite young.
- Yeah, quite young.
You need more motor skills,
that's why like football players,
and some they're in their twenties.
But after that, we all age.
As my father used to tell me,
when I was a young and pretty unknowledgeable person,
and I would tell him he's old,
(Bob laughing)
he would tell me you get to my age if you're lucky.
- Right. Good point.
- Because if you are not lucky, you will die young.
Our spine will age with us.
That's why it's important to have a healthy lifestyle
because you can age fast or slow.
But you will age, and Kayla and the ISLife
have put a good protocols together
just by getting exposed to us and knowing simple facts.
We can kind of move your aging process, slow it down,
and move your curvature of your spine
to a more favorable area.
Now, sometimes you have a back lock, you have an accident.
You have (indistinct), you have a pathology.
Then you fall off the cliff.
That is where I come in and I reverse that process
and bring you back to your age group.
- Yeah, people who have back problems understand this well.
I mean, you can't do anything.
It's the foundation of your body, you know what I mean.
- So I have myself back pain
so I know how it is when you cannot move an inch.
- Sure.
- Everything is excruciating.
Maybe that's partially give me more empathy
for my patients.
- That's true.
I always think that too, if nothing else,
they will be getting a little more empathy.
So what type of patient is a good candidate for OLLIF.
- No. First of all, any patient with a back problem
is a good candidate for Inspired Spine
because Inspired Spine, we do 5% to 8% surgery.
We do over 90% other treatment to help our patient.
But the patient that have been told
he need a spinal fusion, or he cannot be helped,
these are our specialty.
These are people, elderly people
with additional comorbidities,
the other problems that other surgeon have told them,
they cannot help them.
That is where we truly shine.
And there's not a week where somebody
from other states doesn't come to us.
Like we had a patient who's a Jehovah's witness
who has been told by four surgeon,
you will bleed and die on the table
because the surgery you need is so bloody, so long,
you will not survive that.
We did that surgery
and our blood loss was half a cup of coffee.
I send the patient home two days later.
Or the other patient who had been told
by a panel of seven surgeon in Cleveland Clinic
that you are 500 pounds, your BMI is 62.5.
You will die of surgery. You will die on the table.
We did that surgery in two hours and four minutes,
you had 110 CC of blood loss.
And we send that patient out of hospital two days later.
- [Bob] My God.
- This is our specialty.
And this is no magic except you understand
that we don't do the old surgery,
we do a different kind of surgery.
Like I'm in Alexandria and you are in close to Rochester.
- Right.
- If I tell you I can come to you in one hour,
and if you don't know flying.
If you have no concept,
that you don't understand concept of flying,
and I tell you, I will be there in one hour.
You say either I'm lying or I'm a reckless driver.
- Right.
- But if you know the concept of flying,
you know anybody can get in airplane here
and be in your place in one hour.
- Proper technology. Yeah.
- Yeah.
- So you also mentioned the 93 year old nun.
- Yes.
- [Bob] I wanted to ask about that.
- You said your mother is 90 years old, right?
- 91.
- [Dr. Abbasi] 91. You're a lucky man to have her.
- Yes.
- But when people get old, their spine get old.
And when bone grinds the bone, because the disc is gone,
we know how excruciatingly painful that can be.
That doesn't change your life as a patient,
but that change your life, well, your entire environment.
Your family, they quit what you're doing
to just make your life possible.
- Right.
- And this nun, we did years of conservative therapy,
but finally, she came to a point
that she needed three people to just help her to get by.
We did that surgery,
that surgery was in one-and-a-half hour.
We send her out of the hospital in three days,
and she came back a year later
and we have a testimony of that nun
who was telling us the only thing she needs help now
is to turning a mattress from one side to another.
- Oh my God.
- I need help with that.
And don't ask me why she would need to turn the mattress
from one side to another.
- Right.
- But she doesn't need three people
to just make her life tolerable.
She's independent. And that is the goal.
Our goal is to make people comfortable and independent.
- And I don't know where I read it,
it was among your materials,
but you talk about when the spine becomes so bad
you fall off the cliff and you can no longer ambulate.
Unfortunately the lifespan of people who can't ambulate
is greatly shortened, correct?
- And do you know what is the most important recommendation
for people with heart to keep their heart young.
- Keep walking.
- Walking and small frequent exercises.
- [Bob] Yes.
- If you quit ambulating,
doesn't matter for whatever reason,
your prognosis is worse than if you are elderly.
Elderly defined these days, 75 and above.
If you're elderly and you quit walking
for no matter what reason,
your diagnosis, it can be whatever it wants to be,
your prognosis, meaning your expectation.
- Your outcome.
- Your outcome is worse
than if you get diagnosed with cancer.
If you quit walking, your heart, lung,
your entire system shuts down
and you cannot take stress anymore
if your heart is not constantly exposed
to certain level of activity.
- A lot of stress, yeah, exactly.
I saw it also mentioned farmers and truck drivers,
they can get back to work a lot sooner than,
if they could even get back to work,
on an old traditional surgery.
- Yeah, no, we have the tremendous amount of data on that.
We don't need guessing in that regard,
we know that after open surgery takes
the vast majority of the patient,
more than two days before they can freely ambulate.
That's why they are in the hospital three to five days.
Our patient vast majority, 96% of them,
ambulate within the first 24 hours.
And that makes sense, they can walk, they can go home.
And that propagate as well in their recovery
and return to work.
Whereas of the open surgery,
recovery can be six to a year project.
Our patients return to work mostly within a month or two.
So we cut the return to work to one fourth
of what open surgery can do.
And that is based on significant amount of data.
I wanna understand with the patient
that what their problems are and what they are doing.
Sometimes they have to reduce their activity.
I don't anybody to start climbing trees after surgery,
after any kind of surgeries,
- Right.
- But our surgery has shown to be the fastest way
to put the patient on the recovery back,
to get back on the golf course, to get back to their life,
family life, sexual activity,
and all those things that can be demanding to the spine.
- So we kind of talked about this a little bit,
but it sounds like you will take patients from anywhere,
correct?
I mean, you can take them from other states and you can-
- We take them from other countries.
- Other countries, sure.
Insurance tends to pay for this or not?
- Well, insurances has never given us a problem.
And, as a matter of fact, when we went,
this is a true story, we showed our results
to Blue Cross Blue Shield out of Minnesota,
the vice-president of the physician relationship,
after he looked at our data,
these are people who understand data.
- Right. Exactly.
- He stopped the spine surgery on his mother-in-law,
which was scheduled for the next week after that.
(Bob laughs)
They stopped that and they sent her to us
for us to do the surgery.
- I completely understand that.
Like I said, I have a some regrets myself here.
So can a patient, a possible patient that needs surgery,
can they talk to former patients who have had the surgery?
Is that allowed? Or do you have-
- Absolutely. We call this patient ambassadorship.
Meaning that-
- Gotcha.
- ... many of our patient are so impressed with us,
that they ask us how they can help.
Because these are patients that are told there's no choice,
there is no hope, there is no procedure for them.
Once they get back to their lives,
we have thousand testimonials online.
Now, every surgeon can put two good results out there,
but we have thousands of testimonials at different stage.
And many of these patient,
not only they send their family back to us,
but as well, they wanna tell other patients
that there is a hope there.
So we call that patient ambassadorship.
As matter of fact,
Kayla is the person who connect those people
who want to talk to somebody.
But as well, we have tons of testimonials online.
- You want to talk about the Sacroiliac Joint?
- Yeah.
- And the procedures that you have for women quite often.
- Yeah. Now, Sacroiliac Joint is where the spine
and the pelvis are joining.
We call it a joint, but in truth, it's not a joint,
it shouldn't really move.
And the only time in the human life it moves
is when a woman is giving birth,
it open up the pelvis for the baby to pass through.
For 70 years, we have neglected the Sacroiliac Joint.
Many times, as a matter of fact, one fourth of the time.
From four people who come for the back pain
to spine surgeon, one of them is not the spine the problem,
is the Sacroiliac Joint the problem.
And the spine surgeon does the right thing,
look at the spine and say, you have no problem, go away.
Because if he's not trained to, as well,
treat the Sacroiliac Joint,
he won't look in the right places.
And we have found that tremendous number of the people,
especially younger woman, who have back problem,
and they go to a spine surgeon and they're sent back
and they're miserable for years.
They come to us,
we figure out it's not the spine, it's the Sacroiliac Joint,
and we do a half-an-hour surgery,
and they truly regain their lives.
This has been, in my lifetime,
one of the most miraculous thing
for people who have undiagnosed, untreatable, unsatisfied
spine situation, we just have to look more carefully
and find out the problem is not the spine,
the problem is Sacroiliac Joint.
That is important enough that I'm willing,
and I'm happy actually, to come back on your show.
- Yeah, I would love that.
- Talk just about the Sacroiliac Joint because-
- Yeah, I think that'd be well worthwhile.
'Cause I'd like to know how it presents itself and all that.
I mean, (indistinct).
- Absolutely.
- So we are running out of time here.
So I wanted to be respectful of your time.
So Dr. Abbasi, thank you so much.
I'd love to have you on again,
or anybody within your organization,
if there's anything they want to talk about,
we could do that so.
- Absolutely my pleasure.
I have make my life about teaching and public education.
- I can see that.
- And I'm happy to be back anytime.
And I thank you for the opportunity
to bring the message to the broader public.
- The thanks all goes our way to you.
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