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Old 12-26-2013, 12:37 AM
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jss jss is offline
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Lucelia,

You will forgive my delayed reply. We've just returned home from a funeral and an extended Christmas holiday in our home town (Wichita Falls, TX). We had an outstanding visit and trust that you had a very Merry Christmas as well!

Condolences on the need for surgery. The best course to take is extremely difficult to determine, usually impossible to know, sometimes even years after surgery.

I've made no secret of my affinity for the M6 and aversion to the ProDisc. Even so, I don't know which you should pursue. I need to start keeping statistics from the surgical outcome forum. It certainly seems that those that go to Europe for an M6 are significantly more likely to do better than those that stay in the US for a ProDisc or fusion; certainly in the short term (four years or less).

I would encourage you to spend long hours reading in the surgical outcomes forum of this site, and of any other spine forums that you can find. You will see patterns begin to emerge. There simply is no substitute for that kind of research. It will not be long before my C7/T1 disc has to come out. Rather than drop another $30k in Europe, if my insurance carrier will cover a Mobi-C, I will very likely do that. I've already begun researching US surgeons for that intervention. Whatever you do, I would implore you to not use a surgeon whose record with the device you select cannot be researched and verified.

I don't understand that either... What does "FDA approved" mean? Multilevel ADR has been done in the US for over a decade, even though it wasn't "approved". Insurance carriers routinely refuse to pay for approved procedures while paying for procedures that haven't been approved. I don't understand it either. I do wonder if US surgeons tend to recommend not the procedure that they believe to be the best for the patient, but rather the one that they believe that the insurance will cover?

Good luck, Jeff
__________________
C4/5 - ACDF in 2000
C5/6 - ACDF in 2002
C3/4 & C6/7 - M6 ADR, Nov 2009, Barcelona
Conceded defeat to a manifestly disingenuous BCBS-TX in my quest for reimbursement, Jan 2011
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