[symara]

and wow, what a difference between Doctors! Apparently the Dr I was going to doesn't know what he's doing... Even the staff at M&M Orthopaedics seemed to know more.

They did an x-ray as soon as I got there, and then Dr Mather came in. He told me I was not a candidate for ADR for 3 reasons:
1. Weight
2. Nerve compression
3. I have a facet joint cracked

I know the facet joint is the main reason he won't do it, and I wouldn't want to do it with everything I've researched. I'm just mad that my previous surgeon didn't pick this up.

He also said that my disc is completely collapsed and a discectomy would do nothing for me and only make it worse. I'm getting very close to bone on bone. He wants to do a fusion, which at this point I understand completely. I just wish there was another option. He wants to do the fusion with the screws and cage and instead of a full bone graph, he just takes marrow out of the hip. He said I would only be off 4-6 weeks because of that, not longer due to a bone graph healing.

I really trust this Dr, he put me at ease and since he does ADR I know he was being honost with me.

I have two more Drs to see in the next two weeks. I'm going to see what their suggestions are and how they do their fusions. Depending upon that I will make my decision on who to go to.

And for those of you that asked about him specializing in failed back surgeries, yes, he will do revisions. He has only had to do one, and didn't specify if it was his own patient or not, but will work on others who saw another Dr for the ADR.

He has only done 11 ADRs due to insurance not covering them, but I would say if he's only had one revision out of that, it's a pretty good success rate. He was talking about how difficult it can be to place them and having to make sure they are correct, so he seems pretty compitent (sp?) even though he hasn't done many.