Yeah if you are pain free or more commonly pain significantly reduced, eg your op is successful then returning to activity is something you can choose to do or not.
I looked at the military too Azhure as I know they are all about returning personnel to active duty, and they have no qualms about putting people back in post disc replacement or fusion. Not that I'd look to the Military as some benevolent organisation that looks as your body as anything other than a tool, but it is pretty well purely focused on function.
I chased up one study where they did PLIFs for US army infantry with ddd (about 12 or 20 people or something like that) and they got 80% back to active duty.
Jeff not that I want to hand out a heap of unwanted advice but I'd keep your cervical spine in its neutral position and worry more about your natural discs than your artificial ones. Maybe by extended you mean neutral, I reckon you'd go back to neutral soon enough regardless doing long distance running or your neck would be giving you some curry.
Chris.
__________________
Dec 2010 L4/L5 M6 L5/S1 ALIF
|