Hello all and thank you so much for taking the time to respond. I've also been in touch with Dr. M. in California who does endoscopic surgery. I sent them my MRI and he phoned me to review his findings. Basically, he said he can help me and his office gave me a quote although they were short on specifics - which in fairness I can understand using the "my car is broken" story to an auto mechanic and asking THEM for a quote - sight unseen - to fix it. Dr M's quote was reasonable for a low risk "minimally invasive" outpatient surgery with (IIRC) 88% outcomes of "good" or "very good". This was encouraging and it might still happen although not before end of year... I put my MRI files into a drop box and shared them with Dr C's office although they have not responded yet no doubt due to the holiday season. So here I am with, as I see it, three options:
1) Endoscopic surgery (which I call the "little hole, low risk, reasonable cost" option)
2) ADR surgery with one of the enlightened euro-practitioners (the "big hole, best doctor, some risk, somewhat big cost" option)
3) Do nothing and continue with chiro and PT.
Not surprisingly, I call option 3 the "no hole, no risk, no pain and no gain" option. To complicate things, my Brother-in-Law (nice guy, good husband, very thoughtful person) sent me a copy of "The Mindbody Prescription" and it says, in my way of summarizing it, that most neck and back pain can be attributable to psychological factors like internal rage, repressed emotions and stress and anxiety - regardless of physical evidence. The book even says (which blew me away) that "...the MRI has been a mixed blessing for people with pain syndromes. The herniated disc... <snip> ... all dependent on MRI for identification, have resulted in much
well-meaning but needless surgery. (Italics mine).
That's where I am. If the smartest and most well educated people in the world cannot agree on something then what hope does the patient have?
oh well.
At least there's lots of good information out there. Trouble is that there is no general agreement on the way forward.
happy holidays all
