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Originally Posted by ANDREH
Hum, good questions. Obviously there is a trade off an once you have a surgery once you have it done, is much more difficult to undo it, so if you can handle take your time before such a big decision. When I was 27 I had my first lumbar. Fusion L5-S1. At that time adr was not available, at least it was out of my radar (maybe some doctors in Europe were in the early days..). The problem with fusion is that it really increases the degenariton speed of the other discs (I had to do another fusion 2 years later). Regarding losing movement after fusion I have 4 fusions and I am way more flexible then most other humans because stretching together with core strengthening is the only thing that alleviate pain. Regarding lumbar ADR I can't give you an answer because I had my first cervical ADR 10 days ago. If I where you, based on my pain experience, my approach would be stretching (not yoga because yoga is uncontrollable, for example my pain only diminishes with stretching bending forwards and increases a lot when bending backwards). So find with exercise alleviate you pain. Together I would try some core strength exercises (most isometric, I do myself at least 10 minutes daily). I learned the exercises that diminish my pain by trying and observing. I always listen to others opinions but is your body that tells you what you might benefit from. While trying this conservative approach you should definitely listen to the opinions of other people who had lumbar ADR and how they feel. If it was my spine, from what I've read I am note sure I would do an ADR at L5-S1 level, maybe fuse L5-S1 and do L4-L5 ADR (hybrid solution), but other people here are much better suted to give you more and better information regarding ADR. Good luck!
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Interesting, so your fusion at L5 S1 led to degeneration of l2 l3? Are you sure they were related? I only ask because usually fusion really affects the levels above and below.