Mr Martin Knight/Colrob1 Please Help

[gamesmdqovud]

Hi There Colrob1

Have read yr reply to Matt re discectomy's and I'm really interested to
know how you found out about Minimally Invasive Spinal Surgery as it took me an age going through many sites before I learnt of Mr Martin Knight and this new procedure. Hope you don't mind me asking a few questions, what's the process been like for you leading up to the decision to choose to operate by this technique? Will you have to pay for all the treatments privately as I've been told that some Primary Care Trust will fund any scans, treatments, surgery etc?

I've suffered with intermittent back pain for more than 20 yrs and in 1997 -98 had fusion and decompression surgeries which failed and have been in constant pain, varying in severity ever since.
I've tried almost all alternative therapies but really to no avail. I read about MISS on another forum but as yet have failed to find a present or ex-patient of Mr Knight to discuss his approach etc

I'd really be grateful for any in-sights you may have to offer, as I have been thinking of going to see Mr Knight myself too.

Many Thanks,

Marie.

 

[unzwkcgc]

i have yet not been operated on by mr knight but i am due to in the near future.i have had 2 consultations with him an feel that he is the only person in the uk doing this latest type of surgery .the first consultation cost me £200 pound which lasted a couple of hours .he was very thorough and not inpatient .i believe that the reason that this newer type of surgery works is because of the fact you are conscious while they are trying to diagnose the pain source before the procedure is done.
i found out about him because a premiership footballer " john terry"had a similar problem to me and the guy that operated on him was from france and he does a similar procedure .mr knights name pops up in the same circles as this doctor and they both teach the procedures around the world.
germany and holland also seem to be well in front in terms of spinal surgery .they have done disc replacements for over 20 years and the are still not passed off in this country.
as for price, to do a repeat discectomy and decompression on me he would charge me £10000 in this country and £8000 if it is done in france .

 

[Mayur (INDIA)]

Thanks for your response. Will follow up on info you've included re 'John Terry' and other doc's. I wish you lots of luck with your procedure really hope it deals with yr problem finally. Would be great to know how you get on with Mr Knight and his team, please let me know how it all goes on. Good Luck once again. Best Wishes.
MLM48

 

[wizzyh815]

Hi i had lower back surgery with Mr Knight approx 10 years ago . He is a remarkable surgeon . However if you have already had fusion surgery he may not be able to help you ,although things may have changed in the last 10 years . i was surprised to find him mentioned on a site dealing mainly with complementary health and holistic medicine . If you want to ask any questions about the surgery I will help . I now live in France am about to make arrangements to go and see him again about a problem I have now in my neck . He is a pioneer in his field and he is extremely sympathetic to patients pain ;a wonderful man .

 

[Flibiamululse]

I was operated on by Mr Knight about 10 years ago . if you want to e mail me you can
Sue

 

[ShoppingBandGeek]

Hello there Sue,

I did send you an email a few days ago but I may have done something wrong, this technology is still all new to me.
Perhaps you could email me as I would really love to find out about your experience with Mr Knight.
I'm trying to raise the funds for a possible procedure with him, as he now does operate on people who have had failed back surgery according to his web-site which is 'The Spinal Foundation'.
If you would like to contact me please send me a private message or email me through my profile when you have a moment I would very much like to hear from you.
Regards, Marie.

 

[bpryqsge]

MK operated on my lower back L5 /S1 about 10 years ago . I guess the op procedures etc may have changed since then . You are awake but dont really feel pain just discomfort when he tweeks the nerves attempting to replicate the pain you have .(I had quite bad sciatica caused by a leaking disc.) He then knows hes in the correct area . I had the disc repaired with laser . He certainly gives you confidence and he is very sympathetic . Ask me anything by e mail .
Regards
Sue

 

[Shahnn]

Re posts #6 and 7 above:

Please do NOT post your email addresses on the open forums. They will be removed by the moderators for your own protection from unwanted nuisances like sp*mbots, which harvest them.

Use the HP email or PM systems via user profiles.

Holistic
Moderator

 

[lil_dj_max]

Hi

I had an opertion with mr Knight in 2006. If you require any info please contact me.

Regards

Lisa

 

[Abz]

My PCT won't refer me but would like to know how people got on with Mr Knight. I suffer with severe neck pain.

 

[Justice Sahbi]

Hi

My background is I am in urgent need of surgery to rectify a very large disc protrusion at L4/L5. I've done the osteo then physio for years and it has always healed naturally, but not this time.

I am very keen to know more about anyones experience of The Spinal Foundation and Mr Knight, my wife had already found out about them before now and it looked good, but had not been able to find anyone who has any experience of the treatment.

Additionaly I have just had a consultation with a Neuro Surgeon at Parkside at Wimbledone, and I asked him about this type of surgery, re closing up the disc, using laser, and to put it bluntly replied that his team were vey sceptical that it could be even done. Fundamentaly they propose clearing the protrusion and debris etc, and that is it. Job done. Then on to lead a perfectly normal life, doing whatever you did before this happened.

I am no medical expert, but I do know that I want to get the treatment done right first time out - and if Mr Knight's treatment include additional preventative measures to stop a re-occurrence then I woulfd be silly to ignore it, as I guess it gets complicated, if not impossible to rectify later. And after my consultation I am quite bewildered as to what to do.

My experience, after my 1/2 hour, is that it is very much a routine affair, even going private, and he did not want to spend too long with me. I had one option, surgery his way, or heal naturally.

It is just that there is a surgical window for early next week, so I do not have the luxury of bags of time to find out if Mr Knight is indeed the best option.

BTW: I am a new member so I believe that I cannot PM / e-mail.

Hope all this makes sense
Aaron

 

[MilitaryPolicemen]

susan please help i need to see mkight gp refusing to refer how do i go about it will i have to pay im suffering badly

celestine1967

 

[tuccartlava]

Hi Lisa, I was hoping you could share your experience of recovering from surgery following your operation in 2006. Mr Knight carried out lower back surgery on a close relative of mine four weeks ago. My close relative is still experiencing severe pain and it's difficult to know if this is part of the recovery or not. Any information that you can share from your experience would be much appreciated.

Many thanks

Justine

 

[blmezenq]

Hi,

For what it's worth I had a prolapsed disc and some stenosis at the adjacent level that was operated on by Mr Gavin Bowden in September in Oxford. Short version is I'm now pain-free and you'd never have thought there was anything wrong! The cut on my back was absolutely tiny! And it doesn't hurt that he's a truly lovely man too.

Mr Bowden does not offer the laser procedure used by Mr Knight. I aksed his secretary about it and I seem to recall her mentioning that it is not a procedure that has been approved by the British Association of Spinal Surgeons.

Thinking about it now I'd be very cautious about surgery using lasers, even if it were more established than it is (seems a bit experimental!) - in the same way about having eyes lasered... what if something went wrong, you wouldn't be able to see! It's a risk, and an unnecessary one I think.

Love, Cathy.

 

[Lindsey and Ariel]

Hi justine.

I would say that your relative is probably experiencing a flare. I am sure that if you contact Mr Knight then he will fill you in. I had the same thing - it seems to be an issue with this form of surgery. It will get better and hopefully will go back to post operation - ie no pain!. I had a bad reaction to the surgery - my disc was attached to my nerves so we think it may have taken a lot longer than normal to repir the nerves. I had the operation in October 2006 and returned to work in May 2007 - quite long but this was due to the bad reaction i had. I had bouts of pain (only minor) until I tripped at work in March 2008. I have now got to have the surgery done again in May 2009 as I have torn my disc at l5/s1 (again). No one else will consider the surgery and have been told to live with the pain. How can you live with it when you are walking around like a zombie all day.

If you need any further details please contact me.

Regards

Lisa


If you relative is still having issues then contact the spinal foundation the after care and support they offer is excellent.

 

[VPSY]

I rang the spinal foundation earlier today and Martin Knight said he can probably help me.
I have epidural adhesions left by 2 discectomies (last one Nov 2008), and there is no surgery on the NHS that can treat them, however Martin Knight can! What a relief, my surgeon told me that nothing can be done, but it can!
Hopefully the PCT will approve the funding, or I will pay privately, i dont care about the cost, i just want my life back, there is no price on that!

 

[wqcbbbte]

How did you get on at the spinal foundation, i hope you're ok!!

Best wishes


spinelf

 

[Pete]

Hi, can you explain what the PCT is? My brother is in a similar predicament and in despair with his pain. He had a laminectomy in 1995 and then a car crash in 1998 damaged his already damaged back and he now has scar tissue adhesions and the NHS are useless. Is there ever funding available for such treatment as offered by Mr Knight.

 

[vbedsuvoiirizberl]

I have looked at this post and your other post also and I think I may have some information that may be useful to you and your Brother.
I see that you have 'restarted an old thread' which shows me that you are 'doing your research' and are 'determind' to help your Brother, thats good, because you will need that type of determination if you are to get all the information and the treatment that is appropriate for his condition. Remember, whilst all spine pain sufferers have a treads of similarity in their conditions, all patients are different!

First, with regards to the above question,
(PCT's) stands for (Primary Crare Trusts)
in other areas they are also called
(LHB's) (Local Health Boards)
Thier functions are to take clinical advice and information about drugs and treatments that are available (both new & existing) from the National Intitute for Clinical Excelence (NICE) and other established & aurthoritive clinical data bases. They then decide whether these drugs and treatments are made avilable to patients in thier geographical area (eg: West Sussex). The main basis of these decisions are cost, safety and effectiveness (per £ per patient or per £ per clinical outcome), other considerations could be patient and/or political preasure in favour of a paticular cause. The most recent successful campaign was for various life prolonging Cancer drugs! However! Each Trust area could make assessments on the same drug or treatment and arrive at a completely different or opposing prescribing decision.
The main interest for you and your Brother, is that it these Trust organisations that decide on 'out of area' or 'private treatment' provisions, usually when the Trust area in question cannot provide the required treatment or that they cannot treat an individual patient because his/her condition is in some way unique and the patient would therefore benefit more than than an average patient. What an average patient looks like, I have no idea!
Proving that one patient would benefit 'more than another' is difficult!

What the other responders to your posts have said is correct, try every
non-invasive and conservative therapies you can afford and settle on the one/s that helps the most. Osteopathic therapy allowed me to continue full time working for 17 years after my GP 'wrote me off' and he wanted to consign me to the benefits scrape heap. Do your research!

I think Anatala was on the right road with the assessment of the 'tethering' which is affecting your Brothers condition. The same goes for 'scaring' as this is also known to be big pain emiting condition.

You need to get your Brothers Consultant Spinal Surgeon to say whether they can or cannot operate futher to clear the scarring and tethering problems without making things worse. Your ideal outcome will be for the Surgeon to say, that he cannot help him without further damage and that he does not reccomend the prescibed procedure!
If you can get him to say something like this, you stand a far better chance of gaining funding from the (PCT) because the only available safe treatment will probably be outside of that Trusts control area.
Try this first.

In the mean time, look in to these American web sites, (BELOW) they carry out successful minimally invasive, key hole and laser precedures which are designed to minimise further destruction and scarring and advertise that they are sutable for conditions like your brothers and when most other Surgeons would give up! BUT DONT TELL THE SURGEON OR THE (PCT) UNTIL YOU HAVE THIS STATEMENT FROM HIM. THEY WILL CUT UP ROUGH, I KNOW, IT HAPPENED TO ME!

www.bonati.com
www.laserspineinstitute.com
www.microspine.com

The only clinic in the UK doing this work is The Spinal Foundation.
www.spinal-foundation.org
I underwent a L 4/5 nerve root, facet joint decompression there which was completely successful in getting rid of my sciatica. I had tethering of the sciatic nerve as well and although it requiered extra operating time to free them, at 12 months post op, pain has not returned. If you want to know more about your Brothers options there, please read the web site carefully and completely. if you want more specific information about my experience then please just let me Know.

I hoped this helped


Best wishes

SPINELF

 

[sistDioke winkingsize.com]

Hi spinelf

I have been for an appointment this morning with the specialist who carried out my discectomy 7 years ago, and he wants to go down the route of pain management, which I tried in November of last year, with no benefit. He does not agree with the new procedures (such as disc replacement) and one option fis fusion, but he admitted that the outcome is generally poor.

I mentioned the spine foundation to him, and he has never heard of it, though perhaps I should have mentioned Martin Knight by name. I have rung them to try to get some more information, but it was an answer machine. Do they take both NHS & private patients?

Do you know of other sucess stories from there?

I am sooooo fed up now, of being back on this treadmill, and even simple things like getting appointments is a battle......