New member from salt lake city, UT.

[twhtwlf]

Hello to all who take time to read this. My name is Travis, I am 29 and live in UT. I have been suffering with severe back pain now for over three years. My injury was sustained at my previous job back in 2006. After seeing a number of doctors and having endless X-rays, and two MRI's My doctors have discovered that I have completely ruptered all five of my lower discs, and have herniated four above that. I ask that you please bear with me as I am not that good at remembering the medical names and terms with the disc names.

I have also been diagnosed as having sciatica, severe chronic pain, degenerative disc disease, and mild arthritis. For the past three years the doctors have had me on Ibuprofen 800's 4x's a day, hydrocodone 10's 4x's a day, and cyclobenzaprine 10's 2x's a day. At first they were offering me phentanol and methadone to which I flat out refused to take. The meds that I do take manage to keep my pain level at or around a steady 5 with the occasional lock up of my back.

My coverage is being handled by workmans compensation, and it is a constant battle to deal with them to get any thing done. To date I have had two sets of SI injections, one epidural injection, and recently faucet injections. With all these injections there has only been very short lived relief in which the pain always returns within a couple of weeks. Last week when I seen my doctor he was discussing with me that I should possably seek ADR for at least five of my discs. As I sat here for the past couple of days searching the internet for possable doctors I stumbled across Stenum Hospital in Germany and was quite pleased about all the information I was able to find about them (this is how I found this Forum). My question is has anybody here had any procedures done by them? And if so how was the experience? Meaning did it help aleaviate any of your pain or symptoms or did it cause more pain and more problems?

I am quite aware of all the risks of major surgery clear up to the case of possable death, but I'm to the point where something has got to be done. Any and all advise is welcome so please help me along this path. Thank You and God bless.

[rhatzy]

I have 2 lumbar ADR's at L4-5 and L3-4. I went to stenum because they were using the Maverick disc which I preferred and Stenum had been using for a couple of years with very good results. I was very pleased with not only my results but with the staff and facilities.

I know they do up to 3 lumbar ADRs at once and I have heard of a guy in Brazil who got 4 maverick discs in his lower back. I hear he is recovering very nicely. You will have to check with Stenum. Send them your info and films and they will get back with you very quickly with a diagnosis and what they plan to do to help you.

It sounds like you also have some thoracic discs that are bad. I'm not sure what they do about that. It is a rare thing for them to go.

This is major surgery and my only option and possibility for me to return to work as an airline pilot was the ADR. I knew I had about a 60 to 70% chance of success, but that was better than zero for the other two options of doing nothing and multi level fusion.

Mark

[mama bear]

Ohhhh do I symphathize with you having to deal with workers comp. as my husband also injured his back at work in 2006 and we've been battling with WC ever since. Every step of the way has been an absolute nightmare! WC has now officially approved a 4-level ADR for my hubby, however it was approved to be done by Dr. Yue at Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut and we would rather have it done by Dr. Bertagnoli in Straubing, Germany.

We have a WC hearing scheduled for 9/2/09 where I will present our argument which is we believe Dr. B. has much more experience doing multi-level than any other doctor (btw, we do have an attorney but he thinks asking to go to Germany isn't going to happen so I'm presenting all the evidence). With multi-level ADR, precise placement is extremely important to help ensure a positive outcome and the more experience the better in our opinion.

We have absolutely nothing against Dr. Yue who told me he's done approximately 500 ADRs, 100 of which were more than one level. I've been trying to get a response from his office as to how many of the 100 were 4 level ADRs, but dealing with them is like dealing with WC.
I've received more information from Dr. Fenk-Mayer (a doc who works with Dr. B @ the Pro-Spine Clinic) in one week than in months from anyone here in the state of Connecticut! Dr. B. has performed over 3,000 ADRs and to quote Dr. F-M, a 4-level ADR is never routine and: "which is extremely demanding – and experience is what helps. To relign the spine properly. To approach very trick segments like l45 and l23 (diaphrame attachment!) without hazards. And just to be fast enough to reduce invasiveness." Dr. F-M gave an estimate of 20-30 4 level lumbar ADRs and the same for cervical ADRs which Dr. B. has performed. She explained that they do many revision surgeries from America and Asia of ADRs performed that have gone wrong. As many on this forum will tell you, do as much research as possible and do what is best for your individual situation. Though WC is a battle, don't give up!

[trkdoc714]

I had a two level lumbar ADR at Stenum on March 27th of this year. I went back to work on June 22nd. The surgeons and staff at Stenum are terrific. I requested the doctor whose last name initials are R-L. What an incredibly skilled surgeon. He navigated his way around my odd surfaced vertabrae and placed both Mavericks in the optimal position.

I'd rate myself as being 95% or better of what I was prior to injuring my spine. Unfortunately for me, I had to travel overseas to avoid the insurance and FDA mafias.

Sorry I haven't checked in for a while. I've been busy using my new back. I have three years to make up!

Bob

[Jack]

Question about workers comp. Do they normally give any wt to the fact you have DDD. In DDD, it most likely came from something injury or arthritis that occurred a while back, maybe even way back. I would think they would say something like 60% covered by workers comp and 40 % by metabolic or other causes not related to work.

[mama bear]

Once you have an approved WC case in the state of Conn., they pay 100% of medical costs. When an injury first happens, there is a form that should be completed (either by the employee or an attorney) and sent to the employer via certified mail with return receipt requested. Once the employer receives that notice, they have a specific number of days in which to contest the injury, and if they don't, then they are basically on the hook for it. Though there may be pre-existent DDD, it's the exacerbation of the DDD due to a work-related injury, verified by a doctor, which mandates coverage by WC.

[Corry]

Wow, and I thought I had it bad!

I'm 28, with a basically gone L5-S1, moderate L4-L5, Slightly less bad L3-L4, Not sure of my T11-T12, or T12-L1 as they wern't MRI'd last time, but in 2002 they were moderate DDD. To top mine off, all other lumbar levels showed signs of degeneration.

I have managed to keep on mostly pain free with spats here and there for the past 7 years basically by reducing physical activity... The artificial disks were just coming out then. Decided then I'd wait for the Maverick (now looking more at the revised A-Mav with the shorter keel for multi-level replacement)

Let me know what you find about the Thorasic levels...I'd love to know if Stenum would do something about them.