Yo, Filum,
Just a friendly reminder that there are grading scales to classify the degree of facet arthrosis, e.g. the Fujiwara's Facet grading scale. There are others – here’s one:
Facet Arthrosis Description:
Grade 0: Normal facets
Grade 1: Moderately compressed facets with small osteophytes
Grade 2: Muscle interspersed with some fat
Grade 3: Facets lacking articular joint space and with large osteophytes
Ask (or insist) that your spine doc grades your facet disease (arthosis) at the affected and adjacent levels. This will help you as a patient and other medical providers down the road.
Also, within this community, you can do advanced, simple searches on this topic. Try these terms, using this link:
http://www.adrsupport.org/forums/search.php
1. Facet arthrosis
2. Facet disease
3. Facet grading
4. Facet disease grading
5. Et al
Related link:
http://folsomphysicaltherapy.com/ddd...mbar-spine.pdf
On Google, try this link to find Karin Büttner-Janz’ book on artificial disc replacement:
Karin Büttner-Janz artificial disc facet disease
See the Google Books result. She did a great job assessing the criticality of assessing facet health as a possible contraindication.