New info
Hey Harrison,
Yesterday I went to see the Dr that fused Peyton Manning's neck. He's a really good guy who took the time to answer all my questions and refer to my mri's to most of my questions. He told me to fuse my neck at C6/7 like he did on Peyton and how Peyton went back and played football..with a fused neck!
He said my neck is perfect except for C6/7. He said there is decent disc height loss, a decent bulge into the spinal cord sac, and bone spurs. I also have major narrowing of my foramin at that level which is why most of my pain and numbness is on my left arm. He didn't see any instability and did another flexion extension Xray and it showed no instability. I told him a doctor last month at Penn Medicine saw myelomalacia at C6/7. So he looked closely at the MRI and saw a white area that could possibly be this myelomalacia. That said, he's quite sure I have spinal irritation. I have L'Hermiites sign when I do a chin tuck. Then if I look down, my feet and pinky fingers go numb, still after 10 months following an accident. He said that would warrant fusion. But I spoke with Bertagnoli from Germany who said my films don't lead him to suggest spinal irritation at all. He said an ADR would not cause any aggravation of the spinal cord. And that I need surgery to stop the atrophy and open up the foramin.
The funny part of this whole day is that Watkins and Bertagnoli are friends. Watkins told me that Bertagnoli is the only guy that would put an ADR in a guy with spinal cord irritability. He said Bertagnoli is a little bit of a rebel in this sense. No one in the US would do it, as recommended by the FDA and the disc makers. So I'm totally stuck and confused once again.
|