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The following paper has been accepted by the European Spine Journal for publication:

Clinical Evidence for Cervical Myelopathy due to Chiari Malformation and Spinal Stenosis in a Non-randomized Group of Patients with the Diagnosis of Fibromyalgia

Authors: Dan S Heffez MD, Ruth E Ross PhD, Yvonne Shade-Zeldow PhD, Konstantinos Kostas PhD, Sagar Shah BS MPH, Robert Gottschalk ND/FNP, Dean A Elias MD, Alan Shepard MD, Sue E Leurgans PhD, Charity G Moore PhD

The original publication is available at springerlink.com. Please click here to view it.

04/06/2004

A Note from Dr. Dan Heffez

Welcome to our website! We hope that you will find it informative. Perhaps you are already familiar with our work. If so, we hope the information we have posted here will answer questions that you may have.

Heffez Neurosurgical Associates, S.C. is a private neurosurgical practice which opened its doors on April 15, 2003. Our mission is to offer expert comprehensive neurosurgical care with compassion and respect for the patient. Many patients who have sought my help over the years have had neurological problems that have proven very difficult to diagnose and treat. Many of our patients have been ill for seven or more years and have sought help from ten or more doctors before finally consulting us and getting answers to their questions. From their experiences, we have learned just how frustrating it can be to deal with the medical system. By just listening to our patients' stories we have learned as much about the brain from them as they may have learned from us. Over the years, this has led to our profound interest in the Chiari malformation, cervical myelopathy, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue symdrome, myofacial pain syndrome, and the dysautonomias. Our work over the years suggests that these conditions share many common features that often leads to misdiagnosis and incorrect treatment. Our role is to identify those patients with treatable neurological problems and offer them the best treatment be it surgical or nonsurgical.

As a neurosurgeon, I cannot do this alone. I rely on the help of neurologists, nurse practitioners, rheumatologists, and psychologists as well as physical, occupational, and speech therapists. Our evaluation of the patient is comprehensive, takes time, and can be quite exhausting. Our goal is to make the best possible recommendations and this takes time and information. This website has been developed in order to inform you of the extent of our work and to communicate the results of our research.

Thank you very much for visiting our website!

Sincerely,

Dan S. Heffez, MD, FRCS