Thanks. It is approved in the US now but I don't think any insurance
companies are paying yet. They won't do a double so it doesn't matter for
me anyway.

"JimH" wrote in message
...

"jamesgangnc" wrote in message
ups.com...
They go through the front or the back? Minimally invasive or regular?
My troubles are l4-l5-s1 but if I get surgery it will be a double
fusion. I don't have enough disks left there to fix.

JimH wrote:
"James" wrote in message
hlink.net...
Glad to hear you came out in one piece. Hopefully all the rest is
temporary. I missed the details of your surgery plans. I have back
issues as well. What did you have done?


Thanks James!

The official name of the surgery was "disk decompression" with a bone
opening procedure (I don't know the technical name of that operation).

The surgery concentrated on L2-L3, the spinal area where a herniation
and
bulging of the disk was causing my leg numbness and leg/back pain.
Additionally, the bone channel which the nerves pass through had a very
small opening (a condition I had since birth) compounding the problem.
The
doctor cut away the herniation and opened the bone channel allowing more
room for the nerves to pass through.

You can be in the best of shape and still develop back problems.


They went in through the back in my case.

Sorry to hear about your condition. There is some progress in the US on
replacing discs with artificial discs, but the FDA has not yet approved
it. It is apparently being done in Europe though. This would eliminate
the need to fuse your vertebrae.

http://orthopedics.about.com/cs/back...eplacement.htm

http://www.spineuniverse.com/display...ticle1671.html

http://www.spine-health.com/research...ificial01.html