[Redondo_Jim]

Hello everybody,

My name is James and I'm a Visual Effects Supervisor and digital artist living in Redondo Beach, CA. I've been suffering from DDD at L4/L5 and L5/S1 since about 2000, and I had a microdiscectomy at L4/L5 in 2003 with Dr. John Regan (formerly at Cedars, now independent). At the time, the Charite was the main ADR option, and Dr. Regan advised me to wait and let the microdiscectomy buy me some time until the ADR options improved.

It was good advice. The surgery was a success in that it alleviated my leg/groin pain and much of the lumbar pain, as long as I stuck with a strict regimen of core strengthening exercises. I still had flare-ups when doing certain movements or lifting a lot (especially moving house and traveling) but I was able to return to most of my weightlifting routine and was in pretty good shape for many years.

Fast forward to 2014 and those flareups start to occur with greater frequency. I'm having more and more 'bad days' where I'm walking around like a pretzel due to smaller and smaller aggravations/lifts. For the first time, I'm having to rely on occasional opiate use on top of my usual methylprednisolone, Advil, and cyclobenzaprine cocktail for flareups.

The final straw seems to have been the birth of my baby boy. Ever since he arrived a few weeks ago, I'm doing so much bending and twisting that my back is now screwed up 100% of the time. I can see the writing on the wall; I'll soon need to get those bad disks replaced.

I recently consulted with Dr. Rasouli at the Cedars Spine Center, and sure enough, my L4/L5 and L5/S1 discs had squashed down considerably since my 2003 surgery. Rasouli recommended a 2-level ProDisc ADR, but only if I couldn't live with the pain. He seemed pretty honest about the odds of success. 'You're too young for fusion, and you have a 90% chance of a great outcome with the prodisc, but there's still a 10% chance you'll have a bad outcome and we'll have to fuse you' was the gist of his advice.

I've been following this forum for many years and reading up on the M6, which seems like the best option out there. From what I gather, no one in the U.S. is using it yet, so I'd have to go overseas to someone like Dare, Clavel, or Ritter-Lang. My main question for everyone here is this: I'm willing to go overseas for ADR if necessary, but I might be able to wait a few more years if there's any hope that the M6 will be available in the U.S. (either FDA-approved or used experimentally in the hands of a great U.S. surgeon).

Any advice will be much appreciated!

thanks!
James