Abby Lee Miller was rushed into surgery Monday night in Los Angeles at Cedars Sinai Hospital Marina Del Rey after doctors discovered she had an infection in her spine.
Dr. Hooman M. Melamed held a press conference on Tuesday explaining Abby Lee’s grim prognosis after she came to him complaining of neck pain.
“She came to me complaining of excruciating neck pain a few days ago,” Dr. Melamed explained. “I had to send her to the emergency room.”
Doctors did an MRI and ran tests, but her condition deteriorated rapidly.
“Something bad was going to happen if something was not done. We were trying to transfer her, but I knew she may not make it by the time we get to another hospital,” Dr. Melamed continued. “She had what appeared to be an infection that went from the bottom of her neck to the 11th vertebrae in the mid-part of the spine. That’s about 13-14 segments. It’s extremely unusual.”
“She was completely, basically paralyzed. If we didn’t do something, she was going to die. Her blood pressure was bottoming out. She was not doing well,” he added.
Dr. Melamed and his team rushed her into surgery at approximately 1 AM PST on Tuesday and finished surgery around 5 AM PST. The team cleared the infection from her spine and Abby Lee is now recovering.
“We are seeing improvement. We are still not out of the woods yet. We need more imaging to make sure the infection or whatever it was is out. I don’t need to do anymore surgery in the short term, but she’s definitely going to need more surgery — we’ll need to do rods and screws to stabilize her,” he said.
Dr. Melamed revealed they have no idea what may have caused such a severe infection, especially considering that her test results didn’t present symptoms that showed she was battling such an intense infection.
Dr. Melamed did confirm that the infection would not have been a result of the issues she’s had with her thyroid.
He also cautioned that she has not recovered fully yet and he could not confirm whether she would be able to walk again.
“I don’t know. Her prognosis would be guarded at this time. She’s made some recovery within 24 hours. Right now she is in the ICU,” Dr. Melamed shared. “We need to get another MRI. Yesterday, she was completely numb from the neck down. Now, she can feel from the neck down.”
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