[marzman54]

Hello all,

I have been a long time lumbar and cervical US. patient from the northeast and have been recently looking for info on ADR surgery here and abroad. I am currently on permanent SS disability ( which took 2.5 years to get) and have gone through most every kind of treatment available currently and it mimics a lot of your experiences as I have read a lot of everyone's posts in the past couple weeks. I have in the past years had a steady decline in health starting with a bad sciatic episode in 2010 that left me down for 3 weeks and was never quite the same after that. I also have had many cervical problems in 2011 as well with arm / shoulder blade pain with numbness and tingling in hands/ bad headaches etc.. I had bilateral carpulltunnel surgeries because the ortho doc said that was the cause of my numbness and tingling ( not so ). I was then diagnosed with late stage Lyme disease in late 2010 and wont go into too many specifics but ended up bed ridden in 2011/2012 with daily IV,s for 9 months. I have been to 3 spine doctors here in the northeast and they are all saying I need surgery of some type or another. Fusions mostly but when I did have insurance in 2012 I was turned down for insurance coverage for a l5-s1 fusion surgery and lost 2 appeals.
2013 I had a lumbar discectomy and 2014 I had a fusion at c5-6.

Fast forward to present - I have been in contact with 2 doctors in the US and 4 in Europe since I found out about ADR,s in late 2013. Currently all doctors evals have indicated that I am in need of 2 to 3 level cervical ADR,s (the 3rd level being if fusion has not taken place) as well as 2 to 4 level ADR or ADR/fusion surgery from L5-S1 to L2-3 (in which one doctor is saying that L2-3 is already starting auto fusion).

I have been an athlete most of my life and raced motorcycles at the pro level for 9 years with over 30 years of racing under my belt. I have worked extremely hard all my life in my own construction business here in the northeast for 30 years. I think that most of my problems are stemming from my work and racing in which I have had accidents and incidents( as we call them in racing) over a period of many years in which I would very rarely see a doctor ( old school mentality ).
I would like to wish everyone a happy and healthy new year and hope to gain some advice for my decisions going forward.

Marzman54
(as monty python said - "always look on the bright side of life")