[Toebin]

MikeL,

It sounds like you are seeing some of the most practiced experts in your area. Dr Delemarter and Dr Regan have been discussed a lot here with very favorable input by many members.

I too am a bit confused and it may just be the way you've presented your case. My understanding is that a posterior surgery with osteophyte reduction/removal and a framinotomy are usually performed when nerve impingement is evident by bone on the MRI. You can certainly have this condition without a bad disk and this sort of repair would remove the trapped nerves. Stenosis is a different diagnosis from DDD.

But you also say there is an ADR recommendation at the same level. And that you thought it was due to DDD in surrounding levels?

If the disk isn't bad at C 3/4 why would they do an ADR placement? And if they are doing an ADR , don't they usually do an anterior approach?

The only reason I ask is that when I first started down my cervical spine issue path, my neuro was undecided on the surgery he would perform. I too had HUGE bone spurs going directly into my spinal column at two levels that actually rotated in counterclockwise, but I also had herniated disks that were adding to the nerve root compression on MRI.

I was told then that if the majority of my issues were bone related, a posterior surgery would allow for the best outcome, but that the anterior surgery would allow for better clean up of the disk issues.

In the end we went with the anterior approach for better disk removal, and cleaned up the bone spurs as best we could... however the mild stenosis I have can only be fixed by doing a posterior repair and I would have to deal with that at a later point if it came to be a real problem.

I "think" from what you have posted that you have more than one diagnosis. Getting the the heart of that diagnosis is the MOST vital part of deciding what sort of repair will serve you best.

DDD is one thing and you can certainly have that along with stenosis, but the repair of each needs to be addressed.