[JCRover]

I'm very glad to have found this forum, until now I had nowhere to ask questions and get feedback from others dealing with back pain.

I consider myself pretty lucky as my pain is manageable most of the time without any meds, and even when I have a flare up (set off by what I refer to as "just the wrong movement") I usually recover quickly and am back to "normal" in a few weeks.

But I have been dealing with this for about 15-20 years now (I'm now 41). About 10 yrs ago I had my 1st xray which showed me the degraded discs at L4/5 & L5/S1. I have tried chiropractic, TENS, physical therapy, and recently Facet joint injections. The only thing that helped was the injections, but that only masked the issue and only lasted about 1.5 months. But it was amazing and surreal being in no pain for that time.

As most of you are aware the healthcare industry in the US is based on doing little more than pain management, and that the doctors here have little knowledge of what is available outside the US (or are unwilling to comment on it).

So after some research I have found Dr. Bierstedt in Germany and have been emailing back and forth with Malte. They have reviewed my MRI and agree that I should have the M6 replacement disc installed.

Now to the hard part: I own, manage & work as a tech at an auto repair facility, and given the time for surgery & recovery, I expect I will have to hire someone to replace me for quite some time at the shop. I dread the idea of this, but just don't foresee me getting back to the shop quickly.

I guess one thing I wish I could now for sure is how long after surgery will it take for me to get back to full strength. I have seen a number of people report in at the 3 month mark, but not to many report in at 6 mo and 1 yr marks.