Facet Joint Replacemet?

[mtoto]

Hi everyone

I am Mtoto, a 39 year old female from Germany. (Please excuse me if I write a little "strange" sometimes, especially my medical English is not too famous..)

Here´s a brief summary of my story:

I´ve been suffering from increasing back pain for around 9 years now, been on heavy drugs for 6 years and -as probably most of you- I am sick and tired of it all...
I guess my main diagnosis is severe inflammatory degeneration of the facet joints as the pain can be diminished, pretty reliably but only temporarily by injection of steroids/lidocaine. In addition, MRI shows a severe prolaps, some disc protrusions and stenosis of the spinal chord but fortunately I dont´t have the typical pain symtoms that can come along with all of that.
Over the years of facet degeneration a sliding vertebra developed but so far I could "catch" that one with consequent build-up of the spine supporting muscles.

But since last year the inflammation episodes came in much shorter intervals and much more powerful and I am seriously struggeling to handle it these days. I am having allergic reactions to NSARs so I refuse to take them and steroid injections all the time imho cannot be the ultimate solution either. Plus, the stronger the inflammation is the more tissue is likely to be destroyed, and the degeneration progresses even quicker. In addition, with the inflammtion, that tends to spread even to the vertebrae, I cannot do my workout routine, so the muscles degenerate and the sliding vertebra can follow gravity very happily, causing further pain. Kind of a vicious circle...

So I was thinking maybe replacement of the facet joints could stop the whole process as even if an instabilty remains, grinding on non-body tissue should cause no irritation, no inflammation or further degeneration. Does that idea make sense?

Unfortunately my current docs have never heard about facet prostheses so I have to do some research and ask around a bit. Maybe someone here can help me:

- has anyone here any experience with facet joint replacement?

- could anyone recommend an experienced doctor who does it? (I already contacted Dr. B. in Bogen/Munich, haven´t received a reply yet)

- some doctor I contacted for facet replacement wants to replace 3 of my disks first (he wants to use Freedom Lumbar Disc). Isn´t ADR totally contraindicated with severe facet degeneration??? *confused*

Any reply or comment would be greatly appreciated!

Kind regards

mtoto