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Old 07-24-2011, 11:34 PM
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mmglobal mmglobal is offline
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The fact that it's bone on bone or starting to fuse does NOT mean that you are not a good candidate for ADR. (Although you may not be for other reasons.) I have seen many completely flat, non-existant discs have successful ADR. At your age, it's probably still highly mobile even though it's flat and looks like autofusion has started. As I understand it, it may lose a lot of mobility and ultimately fuse well, but not for many many years and continued motion (even if it is micro-motion) can engage pain generators especially in systems with severe stenosis caused by the collapsed disc space and everything that goes with it.

Spine surgery should be avoided if possible, but don't rule out non-fusion options unless you've been evaluated by a quality ADR surgeon who is NOT subject to reimbursement issues or low experience level driving the recommendations.

Let me know if you want some help with your decision making.

Mark

PS... note that auto-fusion can lead to auto-adjacent segment disease, just like fusion increases the risk of adjacent segment disease. If it's not moving, it's overloading the adjacent segment, whether or not the fusion comes from surgery or nature. (however, the continued micro-motion can make it less stressful to the adjacent levels, but it may come with pain too.)
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2000 L4-5 Microdiscectomy/laminotomy
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