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Old 09-06-2017, 11:57 AM
RedLava RedLava is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2017
Posts: 12
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I agree that for my mental health it feels better with the idea of having a plan in place and that's why I still visited 2 surgeons even with my pain currently minimal. I'm still just a tiny bit on the fence deciding between the 2 that were Mobi-C trained. One of them is an orthopedic surgeon listed as a top guy on Becker's Spine review, has a lot of online reviews, showed up on an NBC clip etc. talking about sports and spine surgery. The other is a local neurosurgeon that my doctor highly recommended but he's also in their hospital network so I take that with a little grain of salt. He doesn't have a ton of reviews online, I can't find much background information and I don't think he specializes in only spine surgeries though he has a much longer wait time to see him than the first (2 months vs 2 weeks). I think he treats a lot of serious brain/nerve disorders as well so that might account for the longer wait time. He said he's done about 8 or 9 Mobi-C 2 levels surgeries in the past year. The first guy said he's done about 40-50 total and hundreds of other ADR's before that. Between the two of them the first guy was all confident, "no big deal" attitude about it and the second was a little more reserved, suggesting I try more conservative care first (a 2nd injection which I don't see the point), but also felt a little more honest about possible complications, even suggesting after I asked about disc lifespan and heterotopic ossification complications he kind of changed his tune on ADR and said maybe fusion would be the right choice for me if I'm worried about those. He was also the guy that scared me into thinking ADR would only last as long as a hip replacement. The first guy when asked about ossification basically said they're rare complications caused mostly by poor surgical technique when shaving the bone. He didn't think the disc would likely wear out in 20 years either but couldn't be certain. Though he seemed a little overconfident in the results, he wasn't pushy about doing surgery either, saying my condition appears to be stable and I don't "need" immediate intervention to prevent spinal cord damage but that it's more of an issue of how much I want to try and manage my life around these problems and give up doing things that I enjoy such as physical activities just to avoid the flare-ups. He also suggested only doing the one level C6-C7, because my C5-C6 is stable and A-symptomatic though every other surgeon I've seen has suggested doing both levels with either ADR or fusion so that it doesn't cause problems later. I'm leaning more towards the first guy since he seemed to be one the highest reviewed and regarded spine surgeons I could find in this area that does ADR with the Mobi-C.
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- 10/16 C6-C7 ruptured disc and C5-C6 moderately bulging disc confirmed on MRI in 12/16.
- Cancelled C5-C7 fusion surgery 02/17 due to near complete symptom improvement.
- Flare-ups of C6-C7 began again in 07/17.
- Considering C6-C7 Mobi-C replacement.
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