When people become paralyzed, what happens to their ability to breathe?
Dr. Bowman: It depends on where they’re injured. If they’re injured high on their neck, the nerves that come off it, the cervical nerve, number three, four and five, form to make this nerve called phrenic nerve and that goes to the diaphragm — one on either side — and that’s how we breathe. If you’re injured high on your neck, you will lose the ability to stimulate your diaphragm, and hence, not be able to take a breath. About 70 percent of your breathing comes from your diaphragm. You have some rescue breathing from neck muscles and chest wall muscles that you can kind of struggle along for a little bit of time and get a breath or a very small breath, but you can’t sustain that over time. If you’re injured much lower, like in your low back, you may not have any breathing problems at all. When you do the surgery, you go in through the belly button. What does the procedure entail? Dr. Bowman: They come in with the scopes basically, and they’ve gotten pretty advanced in that capability
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