Active-L disc - how is held in.

[Karger]

Originally Posted by mmglobal

Karger, I have some activ-L models... if you live near me (southern california) come see them. All of the discs are held in place by the tension on the ligaments that hold your spine together. Hence the need for good ligaments and facets in order to be OK for ADR.

The amount of force required to distract the disc space is pretty dramatic. You'd be shocked how hard they have to hit the insertion tool in order to literally pound it into place. Once the disctraction tools are released, the prosthesis is in and not going anywhere. It's as if you jacked up the wheel of a truck... removed the wheel and put a bunch of flat rocks under the axel. Lower the jack and you can't pull the rocks out.

Mark

Thanks Mark,

Makes sense. Thanks for the info. I appreciate it. I had frineds ask "how does it stay in place". And I really didn't know. I though it was magic or Dr Zeegers was part Jedi and used the force :P He never really went into how it was actually being held. It just recall him saying that it would be very very very hard to move the disc after the 1st month.

I didn't realize they have pound them in place.

Does the bone growth around it also help hold it in, or is that just just body reacting to a foreign object in the body?

Last question, are all ADR's held in my ligaments and tension or are some different held in different then others?

Thanks again for the info

[Maria]

it's a foreign object and the body generally will work to surround or encapsulate foreign objects with it's own means such as scar tissue, surrounding ligaments, tissue and such. I would imagine as well the sheer amount of body weight that upon discs in the lower lumbar area would help with things settling into place.