Posted by vince on March 5, 2001, at 23:27:37
In reply to Re: spinal surgery for depression ? » vince, posted by Cece on March 5, 2001, at 19:56:54
> > A while back one of the news magazine shows (60 Minutes or similar) done a report on a surgery that could help depression. It has been a while and I can't remember any of the details but according to the report one of the upper vertebrate in the neck could be impinging a nerve (vagus nerve maybe, I don't remember now and I know nothing about anatomy). This happens if the opening that the nerve passes through is too small. This could be detected with an MRI and could be corrected with surgery by increasing the size of the opening relieving the presure on the nerve. I haven't heard anything about it since.
> >
> > Anyway, I'm just wondering if anyone knows what I'm talking about and has any information about this procedure.
> >
> > Vince
>
> I was interested in this when I read the post also, as it supposedly "cured" CFIDS and fibromyalgia (i have the latter). Today, I asked my pdoc about it- he is very open-minded to new possibilities. He said that he had heard about it when it first was aired, and was very skeptical. He said that if something new was really medically of interest, that it would be written up in a medical journal for peer review, not aired on a TV show. He also said that patients with CFIDS had been studied SO extensively for any irregularities at all, that it would likely have turned up in those studies.
> Not necessarily the final answer, but an opinion that I respect from my experience with this doc.
> The url for the info about the show is: www.abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DrJphnson/drjohnson_3.html
>
> CeceCece,
I'm sure that this is the story that I was thinking of, but for some reason I had in mind that the surgery could potentially help some cases of treatment resistant depression in patients with abnormal findings on MRI’s of the base of the skull and neck. Thanks for the url, I had to correct the typo (jphnson - > johnson), but the info is still out there.
Vince
poster:vince
thread:55617
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010302/msgs/55662.html