Quote:
Originally Posted by NJ Gene
reqmt, I'm sorry to hear about the pain you're having. Do you have multiple opinions about the hybrid approach? Regardless of your answer, I would recommend consulting some of the doctors that Henry suggested, especially Dr Zigler and Dr. Blumenthal at TBI. You have a chance of insurance coverage with them. However, if you decide to go to Europe, you can get extensive tax deductions, which I can attest to as a C.P.A.
Since this is a board that is for ADR, I don't want to push fusion. However, I will mention that I had 2 levels of fusion in my lumbar spine at L3-L5. It was done in a minimally-invasive way, so I felt better immediately upon waking up from the surgery. I just had to take it easy for 12 weeks to let everything heal. My surgery in the lumbar spine was 4 years ago (Dec, 2010) and I've been fine ever since. Most of my issues have been in the neck.
Good luck whichever way you decide to go!!
Gene
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Hi Gene,
I did get many many opinions over the last few years, ranging from shoulder shrugs to 2 level fusion, but what set my decision in stone was seeing the top orthopedic surgeon in Stony Brook Hospital, and one at HSS in NYC. Both agreed that the hybrid surgery would be the best because at the L5/S1 level the facet joints are causing pain as well, so if they did an ADR at that level I would still be in pain from the arthritic facet joints still being able to rub together, so stabilizing that would reduce pain there. Then the ADR at L/45 would get rid of the discogenic pain there, and I would no longer have stenosis with everything being put back in place. Of course both ( as any good doctor would ) said they cannot guarantee the outcome as recover is up to me - but I knew that already.
So 12 weeks for recovery - that is a long time but i'm glad to hear you have no more problems there, so it is definitely worth it!
Thanks for the reply!