[Rein]

Jess

Welcome!

You're what I call a self-starter. You've obviously monitored this forum for a while before posting, done a lot of research into your condition, determined how to transmit your information abroad (on your own) to the surgeons who can do you the most good (if you decide to go overseas) and are asking the right questions. You've already leapt right over the single biggest hurdle - figuring out what questions to ask and where to ask them. Good job!

Not being a cervie my help is most probably only general, but I can comment on a couple of things. Physicians tend to want to let the body heal itself rather than perform invasive surgery, working up to surgery starting with the most conservative treatments first. In general, this is certainly a wise policy. How long to wait and what steps to take along the way are subject to debate, however, and unless you can confirm that the individual suggesting your 6-month wait has more specialized information on your condition than you, I'd question their strategy (at the very least). I've learned to never assume that a physician has more or less knowledge about a particular condition than I. I've come across several professionals with far less knowledge about ADR. This is not to say they aren't competent, only that no one professional is capable of reading everything out there about every condition, and a motivated patient is far more likely to ferret out *all* the knowledge available than a general practitioner or one in another field.

Ditto on Chuck's comment about Stenum. Do a thorough search here to locate more information about that facility before contemplating going there.