There’s no one else here ever done a kyphoplasty on a younger patient?
I’ll admit that I did one in a 38 year old lady who was in a car wreck. She had RA and had taken prednisone off and on for a long time, didn’t have osteoporosis from it though. She had kids and was a single mom, was having a hard time making it through work because her back hurt so bad. I was upfront with her and told her that the textbook answer here was to just let it heal on its own. She really did give it a good try for a week and a half but social factors came in to play and she was really worried about making ends meet and asked if kyphoplasty would give her a chance to feel better faster. The answer was legitimately “yes, it could” so I told her I would try to get insurance approval and if they approve we could do it. They approved it, I did it, she felt better and went back to work. I think most of us would agree I didn’t do anything wrong although I did deviate from standard treatment in a young patient. Sometimes I think there are cases that make sense to not live by such hard and fast rules of the “gold standard“. Seems to me that’s what being a doctor is all about, making those decisions when it is the right thing.
I wouldn’t post it on social media though, we all can agree that would be a dumb thing to do.
