News

Surgery and a guest spot on 'The Doctors'

By Scott Wagar

10/09/2012

Picture yourself with impaired vision and being told that you have a pituitary tumor which needs to be removed to save your eyesight. No doubt, images of unsightly surgery would be the first impressions to enter into your mind, not to mention thoughts of having months of uncomfortable recovery time.

For one Kramer woman, she was faced with this scenario, but after discovering an institute in California which performs a new, noninvasive surgery with literally only a few days of recovery, this woman had the surgery; and then, found herself on the television show, “The Doctors”.    

“I was watching television with my brother and we were watching a sports channel where you can see the small stuff on the bottom of the screen, while I was having a hard time reading that,” said Kristin Kersten. “I thought it was just my eyes. My mom and my dad both had glasses in their mid-30s, and I’m 33, so I was thinking that maybe I just needed reading glasses.”

At the same time she was struggling to see small print, Kersten was also having difficulty working with numbers and reading sentences in their proper sequence.

“I would see multiple zeros or confuse sixes and eights,” Kersten said. “People also read from the left side to the right side and I could not do that. I know that is how you are supposed to read, but all I could do was go to the right side and pick those words out because I could see them clearly. To understand this better, when I went to the eye doctor for an exam, I could only read the digits on the right hand side but I couldn’t see anything on the left side clearly.”

After seeing an optometrist, she was sent to an ophthalmologist, who sent her on to another medical facility for more testing. It was there she was diagnosed with a pituitary tumor.

“By that time, my vision was limited to 25 percent,” Kersten said. “My tumor was the size of a golf ball and was pressing on my optical nerve.”
Being faced with a pituitary tumor, Kersten went to the internet and began researching treatments and medical facilities, and it is here she discovered Dr. Hrayr Shahinian and the Skull Base Institute of Los Angeles.

Shahinian uses a new noninvasive technique to remove a pituitary tumor. The surgery consisted of small tools which are inserted through the opening of the right nostril and directly to the pituitary gland to remove the tumor.  

“This procedure was much more attractive to me, because if I did it the old fashion way I would have had to have an open craniotomy, meaning they open your skull to take out the tumor through a very long surgery. It also means you have to be in ICU for a week or two, then back to a hospital room for two or three more weeks, and your recovery time is eight to ten months,” Kersten said. “My surgery was three hours long. I came in at 10 a.m., the surgery was at noon, Dr. Shahinian completed surgery at 3 p.m. and then back to my room at 5 p.m. I was up walking by 8 or 9 a.m. the next morning and discharged by 12:40 that day.”

At the same time Kersten was having surgery, the television show, “The Doctors”, had a keen interest in Shahinian’s procedure and was looking to have him on the show to explain the surgery.

“The producers of “The Doctors” had been working on getting Dr. Shahinian on the show,” Kersten said. “And, Dr. Shahinian had suggested to me that I had a neat story to tell,”

Although she wanted a television crew to hear her story, Kersten had one problem, she was not ready in any sense to be on television for one important reason.

“When I went out there I wasn’t planning to be on TV,” she said. “And, I didn’t bring any dress clothes with me – you know – why would I?”

Without having what Kersten primarily called her Sunday best with her, the studio at Paramount provided it for her.

“That was extremely crazy,” Kersten said. “They do your hair and make-up, and they have wardrobes where they dress you up and get you ready to go.”

During the show, Dr. Travis Stork, one of the hosts for “The Doctors”, interviewed Kersten and Shahinian. Kersten was given the opportunity to speak about what happened to her, and Shahinian explained the technique he used on Kersten.

“It was fun to tell people about my surgery and results,” Kersten said.

To date, only three medical facilities in the nation do this type surgery with Shahinian being considered one of the leading surgeons in this medical field. He has conducted around 2,500 surgeries successfully in this area.

For Kersten, she has had no adverse effects from the surgery, which can consist of losing one’s taste or hearing anywhere from four to six months.

Better yet, her eye sight is getting better, she can actually read street and stop signs, and, she is back to reading the small print on the bottom of her favorite sports channel.

Kersten’s appearance on “The Doctors” will be this Wednesday, Oct. 10, on NBC (Channel 10 locally) at 3 p.m.  

To learn more about the Skull Base Institute and Shahinian, go to www.skullbaseinstitute.com/. For more information on Kersten and her appearance on "The Doctors," go to www.thedoctorstv.com/.