Originally Posted by funcrew (Post 118335)

Will answer your questions to the best of my knowledge. Dr. Desai has specialized in spine surgery for 15 years. He is chief of spinal care for Sana Dreifaltigkeits-Krankenhaus in Cologne. He does a lot of ADRs, mostly CP-ESP and LP-ESP. Also tricky work like whole-spine fusion for severe scoliosis, facet joint ablation, laminectomies, and many others. His sales pitch is somewhat subdued. He explains that fixing your discs at discreet levels will not repair everything that's wrong with your skeleton and may not result in your being 100 percent pain free. I found him to be humble, dedicated and perfectionist at his craft. He expects you as a patient to faithfully obey your post-op instructions in order to have a good outcome.

For my future lumbar ADR, I'm still considering the Pro Disc. As someone that lifts iron weights for health and recreation, my lumbar discs see a lot more force than those of a couch potato watching TV. The CP-ESP for cervical repairs comes in multiple sizes, and in fact my 3 units are each different size. Unfortunately, their LP-ESP lumbar units only come in one size. The footprint of that device is too small for my comfort level, introducing the risk of subsidence. The Pro Disc is available in much larger footprints for lumbar applications. Additionally, the Pro Disc has a replaceable UHDPE core, so if the ball and socket joint wear out, they can open me up and pop in a new core, leaving the titanium plates bonded to the vertebrae. Conversely, the LP-ESP is a single integrated unit, so if the elastic core fails, you are hosed really bad. They then have to chip the titanium plate away from the bone and fuse that level.

I did not gather quotes from Clavel and other international superstar ADR docs because I was comfortable with my Dr Desai action plan.

I believe that if you spend a few months on this forum reading many threads and posts, you will be able to formulate an action plan that suits your goals and resources.

Cheers, Tim