Russell Nelson, MD – Nelson Spine Institute

Dr Nelson is amazing. My son had back pain for 2 years and was in unbelievable pain by the time we got to him. He immediately scheduled him for surgery on a Monday only 3 days after seeing him. The surgery went great and he is finally out of pain. No need for pain pills anymore. Thank you Dr Nelson and Anna for taking such great care of my son. We are grateful for you.

Been to Dr Nelson office 3 times, is staff is very polite, very knowledgeable, helpful and the wait times are next to nothing. Dr Nelson is very knowledgeable and spinal conditions and explain to me in detail what needs to be done in order for my cervical spine to be corrected. I feel I’m in really good hands with Dr Nelson.

The doctor is nice, personable and thorough. I have a problem that they moved recently and did not send me notice his practice has a new name and address. I checked his website to get the phone number and the website doesn’t indicate he changed things and the number was disconnected. I finally got a hold of someone and they were rude and gave me some flack about billing between private insurance or Work
Comp. I’d had enough and decided it’s time to change doctors to an office that isn’t so difficult to deal with.
The woman who works in reception is very nice though.

Don’t let him touch you! He seems nice and has an impressive office. I had a fusion surgery and he put an intervertebral cage in wrong. I could see it on the x-​rays immediately and he denied it was a problem. I was in awful pain following the surgery and he sent me to his buddy for pain management. He charged outrageous fees for the pain injections. After a year of pain and suffering, Dr. Nelson took out my fixation hardware, but left the incorrectly placed cage. He continually denied it was the problem. Luckily, but not soon enough, I moved to Colorado. The FIRST physician to see my MRI told me the intervertebral cage was gouging my L5 nerve root. Four physicians agreed and a neurosurgeon removed what he could. He said the bone stimulators caused bone spurs to grow around my nerve and couldn’t be removed. He also said, «it’s too bad we didn’t get the cage out sooner». Dr. Nelson said the cage was not where it could interfere with anything. Now I have permanent nerve damage AND he put my spine together crooked– when my legs are straight, my torso points in a different direction. See anyone else but this butcher.

The Lumbar Fusion XLIF surgery Dr. Nelson performed on me was a complete failure as there was no bone growth. I was left in much worse pain and condition than before the surgery. I was in bed for a year with miserable pain, unable to sit up (as my spine couldn’t hold me up). I couldn’t take care of myself, and had to have my husband & housekeeper to take care of me. He lacks «bedside manner» (I would agree he has some ego issues, and is either a poor listener, or doesn’t care to hear post-​surgery (post-​payment) issues. He showed very little concern for my extreme pain, suggesting that I was merely getting addicted to the pain killers, and farmed me off to a pain management specialist. I finally connected with prominent Neurosurgeon, Dr. J. Patrick Johnson, head of the Cedars Sinai Spine Center, who discovered the complete failure via a Myelogram, and who suggested/​believed that the ‘hardware’ chosen was far to minimal to have properly secured the vertabrae, therefore making bone adhesion impossible due to the instability/​movement. At this time I also found out that Dr. Nelson’s x-​rays, which he assured my husband and me were showing significant, appropriate bone growth, were useless as only a test such as a Myelogram can show such a thing with certainty. At Cedars-​Sinai, the neurosurgeon had to bore out the bad work of Dr. Nelson… according to Cedars-​Sinai Spine Center, there should always be notes made/​included (by Nelson, regarding hardware used, brand, installation procedure) in the patient’s surgical file… That’s right: there were NONE.
PLEASE DO NOT LET THIS ARROGANT ORTHOPEDIST CUT YOU OPEN. IT IS WELL WORTH THE DRIVE INTO LOS ANGELES TO HAVE A PROFESSIONAL NEUROSURGEON DO THE SURGERY. After my second surgery, with Dr. Johnson, I was off all pain killers after one month, BACK TO LIFE! Barbara G., T.O.