A London man has become the first person in Canada to receive a robotic assisted surgery on his spine.
Dave Myeh suffered from debilitating, chronic back pain that led to sciatica in his right leg and extreme pain in his lower back.
“It was very debilitating, to the point that the shooting pain in my right leg caused me to stumble and fall,” said Myen in a statement. “It was difficult to live with and started to negatively affect my day-to-day life.”
After many visits with his family doctor, chiropractors, and massage therapists, Myen turned to London Health Sciences Centre and became the first patient in Canada to receive a surgery called a direct lateral spine surgery, using the MazorX Spinal Robot.
“Usually, we would do this surgery from the back, which means the patient would lie on their stomach,” said Physician, Inpatient Clinical Neurosciences at LHSC, Dr. Victor Yang. “Because Myen needed surgery in two spots on his spine, the surgical team was able to use this new robotic technology to perform a minimally invasive surgery from the side, called a direct lateral spinal surgery.”
“When I woke up from the surgery, the sciatica pain in my leg was immediately gone. It was amazing,” recalled Myen. “The surgery definitely did its job.”
