By Ginny Cooper
According to his wife, Courtney Eagleston is used to being a “guinea pig.” The 79-year-old had an innovative spinal surgery several years ago, fusing vertebrae from the L2 to the sacrum. Now he was suffering from spinal stenosis at a level above his previous fusion. Spinal stenosis is the narrowing of the open spaces in the spine, which puts pressure on the spinal cord and on the nerves that pass through the openings. The result is often pain, tingling, numbness and muscle weakness in the affected limbs. In Eagleston’s case, he was even having difficulty walking. 
“I did not want to perform an extension of the fusion,” explained orthopaedic surgeon James B. Manzanares, M.D. “That would have entailed removing the old rods and screws and putting in new ones and would have required a week to 10 days in the hospital and incurred a great deal of blood loss.” Instead, Dr. Manzanares relieved the pressure in Eagleston’s spine from the inside out, using a set of flexible instruments known as the iO-Flex® system. He performed the hour-long operation at Seaside Surgery Center in Naples. It was the first spinal surgery conducted at the facility, which opened in November of 2015.
“The procedure is minimally invasive, preserving bone and stability. Nobody else in Naples does it; there are maybe 10 surgeons in Florida who do. I have done 80% fewer fusions since I began using this procedure. My patients recover faster, and lose less blood and I sleep well at night, knowing I do the right thing for my patients,” says Manzanares.