Wombatcat,
Welcome to the forum! You will find plenty of helpful people here.
I concur with Jeff. I am first and foremost a cervical patient and I will be having a two level cervical ADR done here in the states next week, but I also have an L4-5 rupture (that left me with numbness, weakness and a loss of reflexes at the knee in my left leg.) as well as a bulge at 5S1 and L2-3. My surgeon won't touch my lumbar because my cervical isn't stable enough to endure the procedure. Once I heal with the neck, we will move forward with the lumbar plan.
That being said, from what I have gathered, a fusion at L5-S1 is not a bad option by itself or with an ADR above it. From what I understand, a disc failure is mostly caused by poor disc placement or inaccurate sizing at any level) but secondly, it seems as if we are seeing lumbar discs that fail at the L5-S1 level. I am not an expert on this but from what I gather, the movement an artifical disc provides at this level MAY not be appropriate if it is too much movement. Our natural disc at this level has some, but not as much as the others. Make sense? Many many people on this forum have hybrids, and Im sure they will chime in. I will be eager to see what they say as well, since I may be in the same lumbar boat as you.
I hope this helps
__________________
2004 MRI -cervical bone spur causing pain
2011 MRI -5 bulging discs at C3-7: Recommended C5-6 and C6-7 for a two level fusion, I said no thanks.
2014 MRI -progressive compression C5-7.
MRI 6/5/14- Ruptured L4-5, bulge at L2-3 and L5-S1 Dr recommends discectomy of L4-5 but won't do surgery until cervical is stable
8/2014- 8 months/3 rounds of appeals, Aetna denies 2 level cervical ADR
2 level ADR w/ mobi-c C5-7 Jan 7, 2015