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#41
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I would HIGHLY recommend you send all of your past and current information to Dr Bertagnoli and/or Tim in USA (his agent). He's a medical magician and takes on a ton of these types of cases and basically pulls all of them out of the hat……PM me and I'll help you out JinSong…please….. FYI, 2 years ago I was exactly where your at and ensured my life insurance would pay out Brenda as I knew nothing of the possibilities from GmbH. It's Remembrance Day up here in Canada but I'm available all the time….
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Dec 1/15 - 3 level ADR from S1/L3 c/w 360 mobility preservation at L3/L4 for Spondylolisthesis done by Dr. Bertagnoli in Bogen GmbH. |
#42
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He's the one in Germany that uses the Pro-disc, right? I'm not wild about the Pro-Disc still, but that's the least of my issues: there's no way I can pay for a surgery out of pocket. I'm a PhD student, an indentured servant basically: I make 13k or so a year, and since I'm behind on finishing because of my protracted recovery, I might not have ANY job or health insurance in the spring. On that tiny salary, all of my money has already gone towards all these medical procedures. I don't even have the money to fly to Germany, let alone pay for a 50-100k medical procedure out of pocket. That's the sad thing I realized last night after doing some digging about Dr. Light: same problem. In the end, I'll probably lose my insurance fight, and his fees are 70K and up. There's no way I can pay that. Once again, I'm screwed
For just a minute, I was so hopeful. I guess......what else is left?
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33-year-old female C3/4 Disc bulge and bone spurs C4/5 Disc protrusion C5/6 Disc extrusion with cord compression, bone spurs due to uncovertebral arthropathy, right foraminal stenosis and bilateral nerve compression. C6/7 disc protrusion Lost appeals for ADR. C5-6 ACDF on 3/10/16 ACDF never fused, and ACDF accelerated damage of the other levels. Someone please kill me. |
#43
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are you an American citizen? Have you applied for social security disability? medicaid? Obama care at your low income?
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Pre Surgery: C3-C4:Mild disc osteophytes. Mild-moderate right facet arthrosis. Mild right foraminal stenosis. C4-C5:Midline central disc protrusion, significant. Mild canal stenosis. C5-C6:Moderate disc osteophytes. Mild-moderate canal stenosis. Moderate-severe bilateral foraminal stenosis. C6-C-7:Mild-moderate disc osteophytes. Mild canal stenosis. Moderate left and moderate-severe right foraminal stenosis. June 29,2016-3 level M6 (C4-C7) Dr. Clavel Barcelona |
#44
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There's not a helluva lot wrong with the ProDisc and Bertagnoli has been doing this gig for a very long time and takes on very difficult cases so keep an open mind, send your information to Clavel as well as he also has a very good reputation. There are others in the USA but I would not know or care to even try to know them with the astronomical costs and profit only driven philosophy.
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Dec 1/15 - 3 level ADR from S1/L3 c/w 360 mobility preservation at L3/L4 for Spondylolisthesis done by Dr. Bertagnoli in Bogen GmbH. |
#45
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I'm too poor to qualify for Obamacare. At least until December I have a job, but until then I can't qualify for disability since I'm freaking *dying* trying to do it, but I'm "employed" for the moment. I also don't qualify for Medicaid because one part of my crappy job is that in lieu of more salary I also get crappy student health insurance too. Problem is, even if I get Medicaid, that surgeon and overseas surgeons don't take Medicaid. Still screwed.
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33-year-old female C3/4 Disc bulge and bone spurs C4/5 Disc protrusion C5/6 Disc extrusion with cord compression, bone spurs due to uncovertebral arthropathy, right foraminal stenosis and bilateral nerve compression. C6/7 disc protrusion Lost appeals for ADR. C5-6 ACDF on 3/10/16 ACDF never fused, and ACDF accelerated damage of the other levels. Someone please kill me. |
#46
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I mean, I could send my imaging to Clavel and/or Bertagnoli, but for what good? I can't afford them. Those friends and family? I don't have them. My parents were violent drug addicts. My friends are poor grad students that moved away already because I was supposed to graduate and move on too, but I'm stuck here. I'm alone.
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33-year-old female C3/4 Disc bulge and bone spurs C4/5 Disc protrusion C5/6 Disc extrusion with cord compression, bone spurs due to uncovertebral arthropathy, right foraminal stenosis and bilateral nerve compression. C6/7 disc protrusion Lost appeals for ADR. C5-6 ACDF on 3/10/16 ACDF never fused, and ACDF accelerated damage of the other levels. Someone please kill me. |
#47
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I've been thinking about what we could offer for advice. The problem that I see is that finding ways to travel cheaply is relatively easy; finding ways to pay for medical care you can't afford outright isn't.
The only thought I had was to check into Dr. Yue in Phoenix to get a second opinion. Your profile says you're in Arizona so I'm hoping that you're realistically close to Phoenix. Yue specializes in endoscopic disectomies but he's world-class in that. He might, if approached ahead of time, be willing to have you come in to review your situation and serve as a second opinion and source of guidance. Rarely will you ever find a doctor willing to say another doctor screwed up, so I wouldn't even try to ask that kind of question, but he might weigh in on what options you have from here. Also, there's an off chance that the lack of fusion was affected by outstanding medical issues on your part. It might be worthwhile trying to get a general physical and blood work-up to see if anything stands out. If Yue is willing to see you, you might talk with him about what to ask for so you don't get the common brush-off you'd get from the standard doc-in-a-box.
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Laura - L5S1 Charitee C5/6 and 6/7 Prodisc C Facet problems L4-S1 General joint hypermobility Jim - C4/5, C5/6, L4/5 disk bulges and facet damage, L4/5 disk tears, currently using regenerative medicine to address "There are many Annapurnas in the lives of men" Maurice Herzog |
#48
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I actually don't think my current neurosurgeon screwed up: I'm just not fusing, and the other disc above it was already herniated. It just did what ACDFs are famous for: adjacent segment disease, which isn't a fault of surgical technique. Although I can't be totally sure, as far as I knew I don't have any other health issues besides the migraines caused by the surgery. I had to do a really thorough physical before my NS would even do surgery, so: full bloodwork panel, EKG, chest x-rays, bone density tests, all that stuff. Since then I've had issues with migraines so I've been in the hospital and back and forth to my primary care really frequently since then. I had a potentially bad reaction to one of the migraine drugs, so I just had another full blood panel, and really fancy cardiac tests (nuclear PET scan stress test, echocardiogram, more ekgs, repeat chest xray)--everything seems normal other than my damn spine and anything related to it. Even rechecked some other things like rheumatology panels and had a brain MRI to rule out MS just in case too. Not saying there might be something they're missing, but my multiple doctors seem to think I'm okay otherwise. I almost wish they'd find something wrong so it'd be fixable...
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33-year-old female C3/4 Disc bulge and bone spurs C4/5 Disc protrusion C5/6 Disc extrusion with cord compression, bone spurs due to uncovertebral arthropathy, right foraminal stenosis and bilateral nerve compression. C6/7 disc protrusion Lost appeals for ADR. C5-6 ACDF on 3/10/16 ACDF never fused, and ACDF accelerated damage of the other levels. Someone please kill me. |
#49
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Bummer--Yeung's not on my insurance and they charge just for an MRI review. Thanks for the suggestion, though
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33-year-old female C3/4 Disc bulge and bone spurs C4/5 Disc protrusion C5/6 Disc extrusion with cord compression, bone spurs due to uncovertebral arthropathy, right foraminal stenosis and bilateral nerve compression. C6/7 disc protrusion Lost appeals for ADR. C5-6 ACDF on 3/10/16 ACDF never fused, and ACDF accelerated damage of the other levels. Someone please kill me. |
#50
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Have you asked around about getting one of the European surgeons who offer film and condition reviews for a fee to look at your stuff? Some of them charge quite a bit but I thought there were some that only charged a nominal fee. You could go to one with a free review but I don't know if you'd get the quality of review you need if you were honest with them about your inability to seek surgery with them.
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Laura - L5S1 Charitee C5/6 and 6/7 Prodisc C Facet problems L4-S1 General joint hypermobility Jim - C4/5, C5/6, L4/5 disk bulges and facet damage, L4/5 disk tears, currently using regenerative medicine to address "There are many Annapurnas in the lives of men" Maurice Herzog |
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