Hello everyone,
I'm really glad to have found this group because no one really understands severe chronic back pain, and everything that goes along with it, unless they have also experienced it.
I have been battling my chronic pain for 6 years now. I'm 32 now. The believed cause is a post for another time, today I would just like to introduce myself and ask a couple questions.
I have a herniated disc at L4-5 causing radiculopathy and stenosis. My L5/S1 is almost completely gone ( docs believe it had ruptured years ago and continued to degenerate) so in addition to the vertebre starting to rub together, my facet joints rub and are turning arthritic. I have truly run the gammit when it comes to treatments, from natural to medical.
Now my next step is to have a hybrid surgery, which is where they fuse the L5-S1 and ADR at L4-5, but I cannot have it done until I switch insurance after Novemeber. Oxford seems to think of this surgery as experimental and will not cover it.
So one of my questions is : has anyone had this surgery and had it covered by Aetna? They seem to be the only insurance that will.
The other question is : if anyone has had this surgery, has it been a positive outcome and what was the recovery like?
Honestly, for me, I can't imagine the outcome being anything else other than much better than the pain I live every day. Needless to say, I'm very hopeful about the surgery.
Thanks in advance for any info