Discseel® Procedure

1. PATIENT APPLICATION

The first step to determining if the Discseel® Procedure can help you relieve your chronic back pain is to complete our patient application. Dr. Moradian will review your application and any medical imaging of your spine that you provide. A patient advocate will reach out to answer any questions and to schedule your one on one consultation with Dr. Moradian at their Arcadia office.

2. ONE ON ONE CONSULTATION

During your in-person consultation, Dr. Moradian will go over your pain symptoms, any previous tests or procedures you have had, and your goals for life after your procedure. This is the time to be honest and get the answers other doctors haven’t been able to provide. Dr. Moradian will then walk you through the procedure and go over what to expect up to, during, and after the procedure.

3. ANNULOGRAM IMAGING

An annulogram is a test that provides Dr. Moradian with more detailed imaging than what is possible with an MRI. While an MRI can identify bulges and discs degeneration, it lacks the detail to identify tears in the disc. Often patients will have spinal surgeries such as fusions and discectomies, which fail to actually correct the issue which is the source your pain. This is the main reason for such a high failure rate for spinal fusions and why, here at iSCORE, Inc., Dr. Moradian insists that before performing the life-restoring, non-invasive Discseel® Procedure, you have an annulogram or discogram.

4. PERFORM THE DISCSEEL® TREATMENT

The day is finally here, and Dr. Moradian is going to perform the non-invasive Discseel® Procedure on your back. During the procedure he will inject your damaged disc with the biologic called fibrin. Fibrin is an FDA approved human biologic that is found in human blood cells. When the fibrin is introduced to the damaged disc, it will seal the annular tear that is leaking inner gel from the annulus. The repaired disc will begin to return it’s normal height, due to fibrin’s inherent ability to promote tissue growth. The entire Discseel® Procedure is performed with image-guided assistance to ensure accuracy and improve patient success. The procedure itself takes approximately 45 minutes and is performed in an out-patient facility.

5. PATIENT RECOVERY

The recovery process is simple and fast. After the Discseel® Procedure, most patients are walking in the next 24 hours. You may experience mild and temporary discomfort. This is to be expected and is normal. The second your physician injects fibrin into the damaged disc and your disc is sealed, the healing process begins. The fibrin will continue to promote growth in the damaged disc for the next 12 months. On day two, you can start walking, while avoiding bending and twisting. After this, we encourage a gradual progression in duration and distance of walking as you feel better. Post-op instructions will be provided on the day of the procedure.

After the procedure, most patients are walking normally within the first 24 hours. Immediately after the procedure, your once damaged disc will begin to heal as your body grows new disc tissue. The overall healing process will continue over the next 12 months.

Before Dr. Max Moradian performs the Discseel® Procedure on a patient, it is important that he review your history and condition to make sure you are a candidate for this procedure. The first step is for you to complete the Discseel® Procedure Application.

Once you have completed our online application, our Discseel® Patient Liaison will contact you to review the details of your application and to answer any initial questions you may have. During that call, he will also set up your one-on-one consultation with Dr. Max Moradian to discuss the Discseel® Procedure and review your current back pain symptoms.

For over 100 years, physicians have been performing spinal fusions on their patients. Although medicine has advanced significantly in the last 100 years, spinal fusions are still performed using hardware that is permanently screwed into the spine. When a patient has a portion of their spine fused, they experience permanent limitations to their mobility and flexibility. These permanent changes, coupled with the significantly high failure rate, and need for patients to manage lingering pain with opioid pain medication beg the question: Why are physicians still performing invasive spinal fusions?

THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE. An average spinal fusion patient typically has multiple procedures and a lifetime of follow-up, which can add up to over $250,000 in insurance payouts during the patient’s lifetime. The poor outcomes and long term side effects are what led to the creation of the Discseel® Procedure. To better understand how the two procedures compare here are some facts to consider:

• Over 40% of spinal fusion patients don’t find relief from their long term chronic pain.
• Nearly 1 out of 3 spinal fusion patients need a second fusion within 10 years of the original fusion surgery.
• A staggering majority of spinal fusion patients report that post surgery, they still require strong pain medication to manage their chronic pain.
• 70% of Discseel® Procedure patients report an improvement and a reduction in overall pain.
• The Discseel® Procedure is a minimally-invasive outpatient procedure, whereas spinal fusions are not only invasive, but they leave scars and require days of recovery time in the hospital.