Blog

Trigeminal neuralgia is a common neurologic disorder in which there are severe zaps of pain in the face. Patients often describe the pain as aching or stabbing or sometimes like an electric shock. The pain attacks start and stop suddenly, and they are brought on by...

A glioma is a type of tumor that begins from inside the brain itself. These tumors can be either benign (not cancer) or malignant (cancerous). They are graded from 1-4, with grade 4 tumors (glioblastoma) being the most aggressive, and unfortunately the most common. We...

Coflex™ is a non fusion procedure that is sometimes used for indirect decompression. Essentially, decompression surgery is utilized to take pressure off the nerves, sometimes with the addition of an interspinous spacer or Coflex™. This holds the spinous processes...

What is causing my back pain? Back pain is usually caused by arthritis in the spinal joints (called the facet joints) and also if these bones do not line up appropriately. What can I do to prevent my back pain from getting worse? If you have back pain, it's important...

With disc replacement, patients are usually able to get off of pain medications after surgery sooner than with fusion. They tend to get back to work sooner and they tend to generally get back to their lifestyle faster. Not every patient is going to be a perfect...

Moyamoya disease is a rare disease that translates to “Puff of Smoke” in Japanese. Normally, blood is taken to the brain through the internal carotid artery. Once it gets to the base of the brain, it splits into the anterior cerebral artery which goes to the front of...

An AVM or an arteriovenous malformation, is a tangle of blood vessels within the brain. Normally, blood travels to the brain by arteries and spreads out once it gets to the brain through small networks called capillaries which provide blood to the brain. It then pools...

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is therapy that delivers targeted electrical impulses to the brain to treat different neurologic disorders like Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor, epilepsy, and dystonia. Some people compare DBS to a pacemaker - but for the brain. And...

Parkinson’s disease is a common neurologic disorder that affects around 1% of people over the age of 65. In the United States alone, there are close to a million people with Parkinson’s. We don't know what causes Parkinson's disease but we do know it results in a...

Essential tremor is one of the most common neurologic conditions in the world. It consists of a trembling or shaking that worsens over time, and it can affect patients at almost any age in life. It is usually brought out by holding a posture or making purposeful...

One of the common clinical scenarios I encounter as a neurosurgeon is a patient who has persistent and severe pain in the back or the legs after a previous surgery on the spine. This is sometimes referred to as “failed back surgery syndrome,” and it occurs in about...

Robot assisted spine surgery utilizes the good things about spinal navigation but significantly increases the accuracy of screw placement into the bone. Prior to or during surgery, the surgeon can plan where he wants to place the screws based on CT scans that provide...

The field of minimally invasive spine surgery is rapidly evolving and Robotics is one technology I utilize. This makes me more efficient in the OR which cuts down on surgery time for the patient and less time under anesthesia. Another advantage is the precision that...

The spine is made up of a series of joints which are composed primarily of a disk which can degenerate over the course of time due to the fact that it's moving. Arthritis and general wear and tear can occur and eventually, the disk can break down. When this happens,...

As we get age, plaque builds up in our blood vessels. This is caused by smoking and other lifestyle choices like poor diet. One of the most common places for this to develop is at the carotid bifurcation. Normally, our carotid artery comes off of our chest and up on...

The normal anatomy of our head starts with the hair and scalp on the outside, the bony skull below, and then the brain on the inside. Between the skull and the brain there is a thin layer, called the dura. The dura acts like a bag that encases and protects the brain....

Open back surgery can be avoided altogether when accessing the spine through the stomach. With this procedure, the disk is removed and replaced with artificial disks made of two titanium implants and a mobile core that allows the patient to keep moving at that level....

Treating patients with neck and back problems without the use of fusion involves replacing or fixing a disk that has been damaged rather than fusing it to another segment. Disk replacement can be done in the neck and in the lumbar spine. Patients that have...

Disk replacement in the neck has been around for quite some time and the technology available is phenomenal. In the United States, we have FDA approval to perform up to two consecutive levels of disk replacement. Dr Kimball is involved in FDA clinical studies on...

If you are reading this, it's probably unlikely that you have a fracture that is unstable since most people that have that condition usually present to an emergency room and are not going to be spending time searching around for whether or not they need a fusion. In...

The traditional approach to fixing neck or arm pain that is not responding to medications or to physical therapy is to consider a procedure that I have actually moved away from and that is cervical (or neck) fusion surgery. Another term for this is ACDF or anterior...

Overview: Herniation and disk bulges are common in people. Not everybody that has a disk bulge has a nerve that is being pinched by it and not everybody that has a disk bulge or herniation needs surgery for it. The disk has two different pieces to it; the outer thick,...

This seems to be a widely-researched topic by patients and while there is a lot of information out there about this topic from various non-physician sources, I wanted to give you a neurosurgeon's opinion as well as one that is based in scientific literature. There is...

You would only consider surgery if you're NOT getting better with the other therapies that are mentioned in my blog. If you are having persistent intractable pain, weakness, numbness and dysfunction then you and your surgeon might consider doing this surgery....

Patients that have spine tumors are often faced with a devastating diagnosis. It can be challenging for them to find out that there is something compressing their spinal cord while also learning that they have a cancer that has spread from one area of the body to...

It is important to be prepared before surgery to make sure that there is a clear understanding of which medicines can be continued and which should be stopped and how far in advance some medicines need to be stopped prior to surgery. As a former surgical patient, I...

Spine surgery is a complex decision-making process. There are decompression surgeries and there are surgeries that involve both decompression and fusion and it is important to understand the difference between the two. Fusion: If a patient has mechanical back pain or...

Augmented Reality Spine Surgery CarePoint Neurosurgery and Spine now offers augmented reality (AR) surgical guidance with Augmedics’ xvision Spine System.  Dr. Kimball and his assistant Shawn McGee performed the 1st AR surgery at Sky Ridge Hospital in...

Surgery for brain tumors involves general anesthesia which means the patient is completely asleep for the entire procedure. In some cases, the patient will be woken up during the surgery for monitoring the area of the brain that is being operated on. If the surgeon...

An aneurysm is a small balloon that forms on a weakening wall of a blood vessel. It is estimated that about 2 to 4% of the world’s population have cerebral aneurysms. Cerebral aneurysm diagnoses are becoming more common as they are found when the patient is imaged for...