Well, my meeting here in Calgary wasn't as helpful as I had hoped.
It was a combo physio/doc/excercise therapist assessment and got off to a great start. The physio assessment was very thorough and he was very nice and listened well. We re-established my issues with flexion and extension, twists, numbness, tingles and pain. My leg raise tests increased back pain exponentially as expected (more right than left) and he remarked about my limited range of motion. The physio then took a quick look at my MRI, noted the bulge and brought in the spinal triage doc to go over my history and scans. He also also noted the bulge, my symptoms and the hypertrophic changes of my joints, the disc degeneration and all the the nerve root compression as a result. Obviously a fan of conservative treatment, he told me to continue my limited exercise repertoire and that a fusion now would result in ~3 more surgeries over my lifetime to relieve the degeneration on adjacent levels. According to him, you only operate when the leg pain/numbness/tingles exceeds the back pain. He said I’m destined to live with my current (and worsening) level of pain for the next 20 years, when they will likely pursue a 3 level fusion. As such, I am not a candidate for any surgeries yet, but if the leg symptoms stay or progress, I will need something. He didn’t indicate what kind of a "something" that would be or if/when I should even follow up with him. When I asked him specifically about laminectomies and ADR, he replied:
1) Laminectomies will just create more tissue growth than before and make everything worse
2) ADR will not help any of the pain I’m feeling because he felt it is mostly related to the facets.
Needless to say, I left the consultation a good deal more confused.
I've spoken with Mr. Boeree and Dr. Clavel who indicated my facets are only slightly degenerated and are just on the larger side of normal. Both agree my pain/tingles/numbness are direcltly related to the disc degeneration/bulge. Both agree that I'm a candidate for ADR and my local spine doc tells me they are wrong and that I'm destined to just suck it up for 20 years until they fuse my entire lower back. Who am I supposed to trust? My heart wants to trust Mr. Boeree, but man... this fellow in Calgary really shook my confidence. Is the doc in Calgary really looking out for my best interest or is that the answer of an overburdened public system that only deals with the most serious cases? Are the docs in Europe just out to make a buck? Is it folly to be pursing ADR? I'm going to phone Mr. Boeree next week to go through the Calgary results.
John, I honestly thought our healthcare system might be able to help, but I was speechless when the doc told me that. They also told me there was no way they'd reimburse me for a foreign surgery of this nature... A long shot, I know - but I had to ask again for us canucks.
I'm worried that if I do pull the trigger on the surgery, my follow up coverage in Canada will be poor because the docs told me to just suck it up in the first place.
I posted some shots of my MRI as well online if anyone is inerested and I'm working on gathering some more shots of the facets (I didn't even know what they were until recently).
My Diagnosis « "Backup"
This is kind of a weird and dark question - but does pursuing an "elective" surgery like this generally negate any existing life insurance or critical illness insurance policies? I would hate to leave my family financially exposed in a worst case scenario should I move on the surgery.