Dr. Kenneth Light has relieved severe neck pain for woman after she suffered a horse riding accident. When the horse that Kendra Sayles was riding bucked, stumbled and fell on her during an exercise ride, she soon realized that she was lucky to survive. She was left unconscious for several hours with no one nearby to help her, gradually dragging herself to a place on the riding trail where she was discovered and taken by ambulance to a hospital in the nearest small town, and transferred to a larger hospital for assessment and surgery. Kendra was left with multiple, life-threatening injuries including serious trauma to the vertebrae in her neck. In addition to her neck injury, all of Kendra’s ribs were broken, she had suffered a collapsed lung, a broken hip and femur and as well as other serious injuries. “My surgeons told my family that I might not survive,” she says.
Kendra underwent multiple procedures including fusion surgery, which stabilized her neck but left her with a restricted range of motion. The fusion procedure did little to diminish the debilitating pain, which Kendra describes as “intense periods of unbearable pain alternating with periods of excruciating pain”. “Even though I was placed on morphine and other drugs, the pain was indescribable,” she says. My doctors told me I just had to learn to live with the pain. “I was only in my early 20’s, and I had a full and active life. Now I was in a state where I didn’t know if I wanted to live any longer; I was in a full body brace and the pain and confinement was so unbearable. I knew I could not accept living like this.”
During the following months Kendra began to research spine surgeons. Finally, she came across a number of articles and news stories on San Francisco spine surgeon Dr. Kenneth Light, who specializes in primary and revision spine surgery. Kendra conducted more research on Dr. Light and began to correspond with him, sending him dozens of medical images of her neck injury. Dr. Light told Kendra that although he couldn’t make any guarantees, there was a good chance that he could relieve Kendra’s chronic pain and headaches along with the benefit of restoring some range of motion to her neck, and she decided to schedule the procedure.
Dr. Light determined that a portion of Kendra’s neck didn't need to be fused in the first place, so during the procedure he removed part of the apparatus used in the previous fusion, allowing for a more natural range of motion in her neck to be restored.
Kendra says that she noticed a difference as soon as she awoke from the anesthesia - the pain was gone. She says that her debilitating pain has been relieved and she can now move her head more normally. “It’s amazing how much you move your head in everyday life, when you’re driving a car or just talking with someone’: she says. “You don’t notice it until you lose that range of motion. I feel so fortunate to have found Dr. Light,” she says.
For more information on on back and neck pain, spinal surgery and spinal disc replacement call the office of Dr. Kenneth Light in San Francisco at 415.673.4500 or visit www.drkennethlight.com
Dr. Light was director of the spine clinic at San Francisco General Hospital, and was founder and medical director of the San Francisco Spine Center at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgery, is board certified with the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery and Assistant Clinical Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at University of California, San Francisco. He is currently in private practice in San Francisco where he specializes in reconstructive surgery in patients who have had failed back surgery.
Dr. Kenneth Light graduated from the Cornell University College of Medicine in New York City. He completed his residency in Orhopaedic Surgery at the University of California in San Francisco., and completed a fellowship in spinal surgery under the guidance of Edward H. Simmons at the State University of New York in Buffalo.
Dr. Light was director of the spine clinic at San Francisco General Hospital, and was founder and medical director of the San Francisco Spine Center at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgery, is board certified with the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery and Assistant Clinical Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at University of California, San Francisco. He is currently in private practice in San Francisco where he specializes in reconstructive surgery in patients who have had failed back surgery.
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