Surgery with Dr. Clavel
 

I am scheduled to have a 4 level neck and back surgery along with a fusion and removal of a neurostimulator on April 13th. Would anyone like me to post my experience as I go through the experience as well as the post surgery progress?

Of course we would like to hear your story. Best of luck with the surgery!

mgossel,
The posts will help everyone…..please inform us on your experience.

Thanks for the input. I will definitely post my journey. I am freaking out about the flights. Did it hurt really bad? Do u have any suggestions? I booked first class flights. I couldn't do it any other way. I few from Hawaii a few months ago and flew in coach. It was horrible. I am 6'3 and riding in coach before my accident was uncomfortable but after I am bedridden for days.

My wifes Primary Care physician here in Chicago is from Europe and was very helpful. She gave her a prescription for valium for the flight over and we both took some (he he!). It made the flight over so nice. We flew business class and drank lots of wine and enjoyed the flight. It was worth it!

My advice to you is to stay "ahead" of the post-operative pain. DO NOT BE A HERO and try to cut back on your pain killers too soon. It will make your situation worse as you "tense up" to try to fight the pain.

Also the pain meds they use over there is not as strong as our stuff. So we requested an increased dose right away and stayed on it as long a we could. I credit it for speeding up my wife recovery time, and making her so much more comfortable.

Dr. Clavel is very good and the service/support you get over there is excellent. You are in very good hands.

I am interested to know your microdicectomy results and did you have stenosis?

Stenosis
 

I had stenosis at every level except L4-L5. I had an annular tear and a blown out disc. The selective endoscopic disctectomies that I had helped for a little while. Eventually all of those discs herniated again and all of them became what my surgeon calls dead discs or discs that do not retain any water. My traditional laminectomy was done on L5-S1 and it herniated again and caused severe stenosis in which I had drop foot. I had to have that disc fused immediately and went through emergency surgery to recover from having severe drop foot. At that time my surgeon wanted to do a hybrid fusion and adr at L5-S1 and L4-L5 respectively. My insurance denied the procedure and I only had the fusion done at that time. A year later, I had my first selective endoscopic disctectomy at L4-L5. It did not help at all but that was because two thirds of that disc was gone. What levels were you looking to have done? Feel free to ask any questions and I will try to respond in a timely fashion.

primary care doctor in Chicago
 

I'm in the Chicago area, and actually looking for a new primary care doctor. Someone this supportive of going overseas for surgery would be ideal, in case I do end up having to go Spain. Would you be able to share who the doctor is? Feel free to send me a PM (I tried to PM you but your mailbox is full).

Chicago Primary Care Doc
 

Go ahead and PM me. I cleared out my inbox a bit.

hi, I am considering 2 level ADR With Dr Clavel, how was surgery with him? Would you mind sharing feedback? thank you so much.