Things You Didn’t Know About Microvascular Decompression

So I get to Cape Town, a place I’ve never been to before and it was for an operation, not really to see the place, but I was happy anyway, just glad that I was taking the chance to improve my life.

I saw the Neurosurgeon that morning, he must have spent and hour with my husband and I. Never before has a doctor given me that much time for consultation. He asked me questions and had a look at my MRI Angiogram scans through a magnifying glass, he asked me what my hobbies were & when I told him that I’m an artist he took out some paper and different color pens to explain things in my terms.

I was blown away, people travel from everywhere to see him because he is so brilliant at what he does. He’s actually come up with his own theory of how to improve MVD. He’s been doing this op for the last 15 to 17 years and is doing the op in such a way that it minimizes the risks.

He also does not use a Sponge or Teflon to separate the nerve from the blood vessel, and the reason for this that because the blood vessel always has blood pumping through it, its always moving and so if there’s sponge or Teflon in-between, this will move too as a result of the blood vessel always moving, also as we get older these vessels tend to droop and lose its elasticity thus moving away from the sponge or Teflon and still touching the Trigeminal nerve.

So instead he makes a sling out of some of your own brainstem and he uses a metal clamp to hold it up. He has been showing other surgeons internationally how to do it this way. So after everything we spoke about I knew I could put my trust in Dr R L Melvill. Infact I decided to have the operation done the very next day.