[Ozphysician]

Hi Cynlite

Yes I have to say I was shocked by the results of the second CT. It blew me away. If my disks weren't so bad, well L5-S1 anyway, I would go down the regenerative path with them. I genuinely believe its maybe 5 years away from being the most effective treatment for people with mild to moderate DDD. Too late for me I think !

There are a few things that I think contributed
1. Facets being synovial joints have, even in a degenerated state a fair level of blood flow - which makes then more likely to be regenerated than disks of course
2. I cant overstate the lifestyle thing. no caffeine, no processed food, I renewed my faith in God, 1 hour of hyperbaric treatment every week, aqua aerobics, I gave up work for 6 months. I was due for a break
3. I'm about to go for my third IV treatment - so religious observance of booster stem cells I think is key
4. I had to convince the best interventional radiologist in Australia [my view of course] to do the injections under CT guidance for accuracy - this was key. If you can make it to Australia I highly recommend him and a couple of the biologics firms including the one who did the PRP and Stem cell harvest for me
5. Prices in Australia are much cheaper and our insurance system is different to the US, being far more open to "alternate" methods. All up the interventions were well under $9000 Australian and out of pocket was $4000

I am lucky in the sense that the articular members themselves haven't calcified - no amount of regenerative medicine is going to fix that

The Coflex has fallen out of favour here in Australia. I really need to understand better why that is.

Yes I'm hearing good things about Clavel, I just worry about post surgical care. Spain is a very very long way from Australia and doctors here are funny about follow up on someone else's surgery, but I might ask for an assessment

Are you looking at ADR's soon ?