[trucklt]

Medicine is so subjective in many ways. Here's a compilation of my surgical consultations over the years for a DDD at L4/L5 as confirmed by a discogram.

#1 (New York) IDET failed (expensive roll of the dice). Time to do a fusion.
#2 (New York) Time to do a fusion. Didn't even want to bother asking insurance about ADR even though he had some some Prodisc work. Nasty and arrogant.
#3 (New York City) Liked this guy and he wanted to do a Charite on me. Insurance squashed the whole deal in 2005.
#4 (Asheville, NC) "Your MRI doesn't look that bad and I don't operate just for back pain."
When asked what I should do after 10 years of increasing back pain and debility, he said I should hang out until I'm older and maybe my pain would peak out. Useless!
#5 (Charlotte, NC) Went over options of fusion and ADR. Knowledgeable and confident without being arrogant. I'm going with this one next month for ADR.

I hope that somewhere along the way you will find a surgeon that you have confidence in.
Ask him how his outcomes compare for both ADR's and fusions. Mine says his outcomes and revision rates are about the same for both. He has been practicing neurosurgery for 10 years and been doing ADRs for the past 4+. He was honest enough to say that problems requiring revisions of ADRs may come up the longer he has been implanting them. Nothing is guaranteed. I've known a few people in the past several years who have had fusions and they've had to back for revisions. Only one, an elderly neighbor, didn't have any revisions. Unfortunately, she died of unrelated causes less than 5 years after her fusioin.

It all boils down to the questions all of us are asking ourselves:
Are we willing to put up with the pain and limitations on our lives?
Are we willing to wait until all the long-term implications of ADR are known?
Are we willing to wait until something better than ADR or fusion comes along?

Best of luck and let us know how things work out.