[annapurna]

Did you ask why the doctor would recommend an interspinous device for DDD or herniated disk? It seems a little odd to jump to and interspinous device when you've mentioned disk problems with no apparent facet problem and onset of your symptoms recently enough that wouldn't expect a lot of facet problems to have developed.

To answer some of your questions, Coflex has been in regular use in Europe for at least a few years. I don't know for certain about the X-stop but I seem to remember that it came onto the scene there about the time that the Coflex was becoming more widely accepted so it's newer by something like a year or more if I remember correctly. One doctor recommended an interspinous device for Laura if her facets continued to hurt and did tell her the one he had in mind could be removed if the facet replacements came out but we hadn't pursued the question far enough to know if they could be removed without enough damage to require facet replacements.

I seem to remember that Coflex was originally not available for L5S1, though that might have changed.