[Maddie]

Scott, I'm pleased to see that you had a good visit with Dr. Bitan. I also saw him a year ago April for a badly compressed C5/6, with moderate compression at C4/5.

I also had severe lumbar pain, with little cervical pain, but many of the same neurological issues that you are describing. I also had a positive Hoffman's test, where he flicks my finger to check for response. I live about eight hour's drive from him, and he actually called me on a Friday and urged us to meet with him as soon as possible after looking at my MRI. He was very concerned about my c 5/6 and the consequences should I have a fall or accident.

So we made the trip on Monday and we spent several hours with him going over our options. He made it clear that I most likely wouldn't be able to reverse the damage done, but only stop any more.

Despite him personally contacting our government insurance, we were unable to get coverage for the surgery, so I had to keep looking. He had recommended a hybrid, a fusion at C5/6 and ADR at the site above. Plis hybrid for my lumbar.

As it turns out, the surgeon that I eventually had with Dr. Pimenta in Brazil decided to just use the Nuvasive NeoDisc at my C5/6 and fusion at the two bottom lumbar levels. His opinion was that the C4/5 will probably stabilize and he does as little as possible, levels wise. So far it has worked. I had other surgeons want to do a third level in the lumbar too, and again, the two levels seem to be sufficient.

That of course is no guarantee that my constantly aging body won't need more work later, but for now everything is good.

All this to say that all the surgeons' opinions seemed very reasonable at the time, but less seems to have worked for me.

I believe that Dr. Bitan recommended the hybrids because the regulations discourage or do not allow multi-level ADR in the US. I am planning on seeing him again in November for a checkup and will ask him that question.