[annapurna]

Mariaa,
Congrats on at least making some progress against the WC "machine". I can shed a bit of light on one small concern you raised - the SIJ. If you already have a painful SIJ as determined by fluoroscopic injection, then you stand a good chance of having that pain aggravated by the L5/S1 fusion. If you don't already have a painful SIJ, the fusion may or may not do anything significant for pain in that area.

Have you tried just giving them a cost breakdown for going with Dr. Bertagnoli? I mean, holy cow, the Prodisc is going to get FDA approval any month now, so, they'd have a difficult time jerking your lifetime future benefits on the ground that you had a non-FDA-approved procedure. That being the case, I can't believe they would not sit up and listen if you proposed something that would save them about $100,000, which is very likely the difference between anything stateside and whatever Dr.B would propose. You'd think it would be like ringing the dinner bell.

Best of luck,
Laura