Mark Jones – XLIF Minimally Invasive Spinal Surgery Success Story
Minimally Invasive XLIF at Methodist Dallas Medical Center Relieved Mark Jones’ Back Pain
Back to back – How one Methodist Dallas success story led to another
A huge smile spreads across Mark Jones’s face as he spiritedly lays out just how great it is to be free of back pain.
“It’s as simple as carrying my luggage through the airport,” Jones says. “But it’s become so much more. I can run up hills. I can touch my toes. I don’t have to labor in pain anymore,” he finishes, another smile quickly following.
Jones’s journey to this peaceful place was anything but. After four years of severe back pain, the 46-year-old husband and promotional agency owner was resigned to bearing the pain permanently.
XLIF didn’t just cure Mark Jones’s back issues.
It set him up for a completely healthier lifestyle.
“I just didn’t see an end in sight,” he says.
But that all changed when Jones came in for his third round of steroid shots. As he sat in the waiting room, he spotted an issue of Shine magazine and came upon a patient success story from a procedure for an ailment much like his. The procedure was called lateral lumbar interbody fusion, or XLIF.
“I took that magazine in to my doctor and told him to help me get this done,” Jones says. “Soon I was in front of Dr. Meyrat, who absolutely changed my life.”
The perfect procedure for him
“The XLIF is a minimally invasive technique that allows me to remove painful disk material in the low back through a direct lateral approach,” says Richard Meyrat, MD, neurosurgeon at the Methodist Moody Brain and Spine Institute at Methodist Dallas Medical Center. “The damaged disk is removed and replaced with a cage or a spacer filled with bone-fusing material. It’s one of many options, but it was the best option for Mark.”
Because the specialized procedure is done via the patient’s side, there is less risk of disrupting muscle tissue and abdominal organs. That often means less downtime and a faster recovery for the patient.
The hurt is history
Jones happily prepared for his procedure date. He lost weight. He researched
XLIF. He was a motivated machine. The day after surgery, he walked out
of the hospital almost fully pain-free.
Since the XLIF procedure, Jones has taken well to his increasingly active
life. He says: “In those four years, I don’t think I ever
rolled out of bed and didn’t hurt. But now I do.”
What a better back can do
XLIF didn’t just cure Mark Jones’s back issues. It set him up for a completely healthier lifestyle.
From the winter 2013 edition of Shine magazine.