Seems like people are coming out of the woodwork

[Cheryl0331]

Is it just me or did others here that made the committment to go to Europe to have ADR; all these friends, co-workers start comin up and asking: 1. Have you looked into Laser surgery? 2. Have you been to the Mayo Clinic? I know they all mean well; but do they think that we have all done our research?! I didn't wake up and decide this overnight. They don't understand what we know, what we feel, the options that prior fusion pateints have here...It's really baffeling how all of the sudden people think they know more than you or think you're being rash!

[NJ Gene]

What kills me is this American attitude (by both non-ADR surgeons and people alike), "Just give it time, it might get better" or "Why do you want to get cut open?" In my case, I am not in excruciating pain at the moment. However, I had that pain at C3/C4 and C4/C5 prior to their respective fusions. Now I have a herniation a C5/C6 which is getting worse. Sorry, been there done that. I don't believe in doing nothing. I found it interesting that the radiologist report of my MRI indicated that C5/C6 was impinging on the spinal cord. Yet a spine surgeon who I saw recently who didn't perform ADR suggested that this wasn't the case (not pressing against spinal cord). I don't know if this surgeon is blind, but I'll go with the radiologist's report. That's their specialty. My late father happened to be one (a radiologist). All that matters is that my family is on board as is Dr. Blumenthal.

Gene

[RobertM]

It always amazed me how many people thought they were Surgeons as soon as I hurt my back. Also at that point it seemed like almost every person knew of a person that was worse after a back surgery. I finally learned to just shrug my shoulders and move on.

[Stonewall_Boris]

Thankfully I never had to go through that. I did much of my research in private. The only ones that knew about our plans was myself, my wife and our banker (had to remortgage our house). It wasn't a week that I notified my family that I was scheduled before surgery. It was less than a week that my work knew about it. I recall the team meeting at work, "and by this time next week I will have had my surgery". And then my mom phoned me and had to see me. She never does that. So days before we were to leave to Germany she told me she had cancer.

[DrewDotNet]

Everyone likes to shoot from the hip with what they've heard. This isn't the kind of decision you can make in five minutes (preaching to the choir, aren't I?), yet people think their "five minute best guess" is what you need to hear.

A lot of it is "availability bias" - everyone weighs the "available" stories over the "actual" stories; Problem is, the bad/rare/unusual stories are the most available ones. (Highly Recommend: Your Medical Mind, by Jerome Groopman)


Most planes land safely - but which ones do you hear about on the news?

[Stonewall_Boris]

Everyone likes to shoot from the hip with what they've heard. This isn't the kind of decision you can make in five minutes (preaching to the choir, aren't I?), yet people think their "five minute best guess" is what you need to hear.

A lot of it is "availability bias" - everyone weighs the "available" stories over the "actual" stories; Problem is, the bad/rare/unusual stories are the most available ones. (Highly Recommend: Your Medical Mind, by Jerome Groopman)


Most planes land safely - but which ones do you hear about on the news?

Please elaborate, not about the planes though!

[Cheryl0331]

Yes, you see; I was required by my employer to give a 30 day notice if I was going to be out for medical that was non-emergency.
I figured it would start to get around so people may as well hear the facts from me.
So I put all of my research in my email and still people don’t get it!
I talked about the ALDDD and why the M6-C is a better fit for me; how it’s made here be not available to US ;o)
It’s like talking to a wall…

[DrewDotNet]

Please elaborate, not about the planes though!


Availability bias is the natural tendency we all have to overweigh examples that we can easily recall when a topic is introduced.

Because our memories more easily recall events which are dramatic and/or familiar, we overestimate the importance of such examples. In actuality, these types of examples might be very rare (part of the reason why they are so memorable)

Getting in a car is much more dangerous (statistically) than getting in a plane, yet most people feel the opposite way. The media, in turn, contributes to this by over-reporting (for months on end) the most dramatic examples.

Not to get too far off topic, but...

Driver-assistance and awareness technologies, and self-driving vehicles would probably save more lives (and injuries) than just about any other large-scale investment we could make.

See: Driverless Cars on the Rise - CEA (http://www.ce.org/i3/Features/2014/January-February/Driverless-Cars-on-the-Rise)

Excerpt:

Human error is overwhelmingly to blame for the vast majority of automobile accidents today according to statistics cited by autonomous vehicle experts, and the economic cost of these accidents has been rising.

For example, says Egil Juliussen, principal analyst for infotainment and ADAS at IHS Automotive in Chicago, more than 90 percent of traffic accidents are caused by human error, and in 2010, traffic accidents in the U.S. cost more than $300 billion, up from more than $230 billion in 2000. Moreover, Juliussen notes, this cost increase has occurred even as accident rates in the U.S. have been falling.

By contrast, self-driving cars are expected to save lives rather than put them at risk.


In October 2013, the Eno Center for Transportation, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, D.C., released a research paper called Preparing a Nation for Autonomous Vehicles: Opportunities, (https://www.enotrans.org/store/research-papers/preparing-a-nation-for-autonomous-vehicles-opportunities-barriers-and-policy-recommendations)Barriers and Policy Recommendations (https://www.enotrans.org/store/research-papers/preparing-a-nation-for-autonomous-vehicles-opportunities-barriers-and-policy-recommendations), which estimates 1,100 lives would be saved and there would be 211,000 fewer crashes per year if 10 percent of vehicles on U.S. roads (12.7 million) were autonomous. With 50 percent, or 63.7 million autonomous vehicles, the estimates jump to 9,600 lives saved and 1.88 million fewer crashes. With 90 percent, or 114.7 million autonomous vehicles, the Eno Center projects 21,700 lives saved and 4.22 million fewer crashes

[Stonewall_Boris]

Interesting,

JAMA Network | JAMA | Effect of Availability Bias and Reflective Reasoning on Diagnostic Accuracy Among Internal Medicine Residents (http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=186585)

But I still fail to see how it is relavant.

[Cheryl0331]

Everyone likes to shoot from the hip with what they've heard. This isn't the kind of decision you can make in five minutes (preaching to the choir, aren't I?), yet people think their "five minute best guess" is what you need to hear.

A lot of it is "availability bias" - everyone weighs the "available" stories over the "actual" stories; Problem is, the bad/rare/unusual stories are the most available ones. (Highly Recommend: Your Medical Mind, by Jerome Groopman)


Most planes land safely - but which ones do you hear about on the news?
People automatically assume that care care outside the US is not as good as ours because of the negative stories they have heard about?

[Stonewall_Boris]

I didn't assume anything about the US medical system as I have never experienced it. I sent my MRIs to 6 doctors/hospitals. 3 in the US and 3 in Europe. 5 came back with I had to have surgery from L3 to S1. The Mayo clinic failed to get back to me btw. The US doctors suggested fusion, which I was okay with. The Europe doctors suggested ADR. It was left up to me to decide. One major point with me, being a Canadian, and having to pay out of pocket, was that I was somewhat guarteed a price in Europe, whereas the US was "well it will be dependent on your stay, it will be determined by the meds you need, it will be up to the doctors descion as to how long you will stay". So if your in the US and have coverage I think that is a great idea, be it ADR or fusion.