Increasing leg weakness and back pain led the ambitious amateur athlete and enthusiastic triathlete from America, who currently lives in Hong Kong, to the apex spine center in Munich. After a thorough preliminary examination, spinal canal stenosis and a herniated disc could be excluded. Thanks to the new high-resolution 1.5 Tesla MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) in the apex spine center, a benign tumor (mass) in the thoracic spine area was identified as the cause of the persistent back pain and increasing leg weakness.

The tumor was removed. Mr. S. could now successfully finish an extreme competition, an Ironman (3.8 km swimming, 180 km cycling and a marathon route 42.1 km running) in South Africa. The entire apex spine team congratulates and wishes you many successful sporting successes!

***

Dear Dr. Helmbrecht and Schubert;

I trust this email finds you well.

It has now been a little over two and a half years since you operated on my arachnoid cyst in Erding.

Things have gone back to normal for me and my legs seem to be almost 100%. Still fighting the residual asymmetry in my leg muscles with physio therapy and trying to get all the smaller muscle groups around my ilium to fire. Proof is in the pudding, on April 14, I completed my first IronMan in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. 12hours and change. That put me in the top half of my age group (50+). After all those months of grueling training, it is back to the daily grind of work. I think I have a distinct preference for the former, though ...

Again, my sincere thanks for a job well done. I have been referring people to you, whenever they complain about back pain.