Deb,
I just wanted to say that I feel for you. I know how bad pain can be from degenerative disc disease and annular tears.
Yes, it is good medicine to rule out certain pain generators. Facets can be a pain generator, in fact, you can have one pain generator or have multi-pain generators in your spine.
L5/S1 is thought to tolerate fusion more than the upper discs. I know several people who have had successful fusions at that level.
This has been a many year journey for me and I found the most important thing, IMHO, is to have the best, greatest surgeon you can get.
You do not want having surgery with someone who is not trained in the technique they want to do.
There is a learning curve for spine surgery and definitely with ADR. It is best to try more conservative methods before resorting to surgery.
I do believe in discograms as they showed in each one I had, the pain generator, i.e. discs in my case.
I also believe that the patient is the best judge of how they feel. I don't like doctors that don't listen to the patient, that is my two-cents.
One of the sites, I used to gain information and knowledge was/is chirogeek.com. It certainly explains DDD and other aspects of the spine. But there are many sites and when I started my journey in 2007, that is what I did to figure what the heck was wrong with my back and the type of questions I had to eventually ask surgeons to figure out what the heck to do with my back.
Just googling ADR will get you some sites, but be aware there is a very definite subgroup of surgeons who are not pro-ADR. And ADR is not for everyone because there are contraindications for the procedure and if for example, people do not follow them, there are real consequences.
So be careful and happy hunting.
Welcome to your journey.
Kimmers
