If walking to the mailbox leaves your legs heavy, numb, or aching, pay attention to that. Especially if sitting down for a few minutes makes everything feel better. Getting a clear diagnosis changes that. It gives you something concrete to work with and a path forward that doesn’t involve simply doing less.
If pain starts in your lower back and travels down one leg, sometimes all the way to your foot, this is likely the condition your doctor is trying to rule in or out. It’s more common than most people realize, and more treatable than most people fear. Understanding what it is and why it happens is a reasonable first step toward feeling less uncertain about where to go from here.
When back or neck pain stops responding to conservative treatment, surgery eventually enters the conversation. For most patients, that moment brings as many questions as it does relief, because suddenly you’re weighing options you’ve never had to think about before.
Receiving a diagnosis of “cervical disc degeneration” on an imaging report can be unsettling. In the moments between reviewing your results and processing what they mean, it’s natural for your mind to turn to worst-case scenarios. The answers are usually more reassuring than they expect. Here is what you need to know about cervical disc degeneration and what it means for your health.
After a fall at home in 2023, Anita Hastings was rushed to the hospital with a devastating cervical spinal cord injury. She had suffered a fracture-dislocation in her neck, causing severe spinal cord compression and paralysis in her arms and legs. Dr. Jonathan Yun was called in as the emergency neurosurgeon. Because timing was critical, he performed a two-step emergency spine surgery to decompress Anita’s spinal cord, reduce the fracture, and stabilize her cervical spine.
