[annapurna]

I'm biased. Laura got her three ADRs at a time when you traveled to the surgeon or you didn't get ADRs; because of that, it's easy for me to say that you should go to a surgeon that you trust and travel to him/her if that's needed.


I've ended up becoming quite the European traveler. Laura and I went to Munich and Bogen a double handful of times for spinal and knee work for both of us. Since that time, I've been to Europe around once a year for business for the past four years.


Practically speaking, getting to your surgeon isn't much of a problem anymore, regardless of whether it's a US surgeon at a distance from your home or overseas. You will need to think about your sitting tolerance for flights. Maybe you need a 1st class seat that folds flat or nearly so to allow you to take strain off your spine. Maybe you need to investigate a sequence of shorter hops instead of really long, long haul flights. Either option exists.


The biggest problem with not getting surgery near your home, at least in my opinion, is that you don't have the support structure available. Not so much during the time in the hospital but the time between when you're discharged and when you can travel to get home. Laura and I have always accompanied each other for the surgery trips so there was always someone to run errands when the patient needed something.


Sometimes finding the right thing was difficult in the unfamiliar city, though. That's largely alleviated now by the prevalence of good mapping websites and smart phones but there's still some difficulty in finding the one odd thing. Gloves to make it easier to use crutches following a knee surgery was one example of a surprisingly hard to find thing that came up as a last second need while Laura was recovering. To be clear, this is a problem with traveling in general, not just overseas travel. Finding the right store in a series of strip malls at night in Denver was another similar situation when Laura got treatment at Regenexx's Colorado facility. If you have someone who can travel with you to help, this problem is lessened but it is real and prior planning (as well as lots of posts asking for advice here) will help.


Getting back home from the surgery is the second major problem. There's a tendency to either rush the return trip and have to reschedule it when you aren't ready to travel as soon as you thought you were or to delay the return to the point where you start chafing at your time in the hotel and start overdoing because of boredom and cabin fever. Hopefully, you can talk with the proposed surgeon's office and get a good feel what the target departure should be. If you run late, don't be afraid to talk about the medical necessity with the airline if you need to change your ticket. Sometimes that's enough to get them to waive the change fee on your changed travel plans.


Finally, before you commit, spend time getting to know how easy it is to get the surgeon's office on the phone and getting answers from the surgeon. If it's hard before your surgery, don't use that surgeon. It will only be more difficult when you return home after the surgery and need answers RIGHT THEN because something about your recovery isn't matching what they told you should be happening.