Upcoming ADR

[Rick K.]

Hello all, this is my first post. A bit of my history first: In 1994, I had a car crash in Florida (I live in Ontario, Canada). I received emergency surgery for a Lisfranc dislocation of my right foot, and also had fractured sternum. No symptoms of a back injury, but I don't know if I was checked for one. I eventually went back to work, and within a year or two, I started having pain down my leg, and the only way to alleviate it was to sit down. Long story short, I took early retirement from my job teaching high school science and math, eventually saw a spinal surgeon (I'm told there are only 5 in my province) and was fused from L4 to S1 to correct a spondylolysthesis and a stenosis. As many of you know, it was a painful recovery, but after 6 months, I was feeling much better and could do pretty well anything I wanted to.

Over the following years, I'd get an occasional "zinger" down one of my legs, but it was over very quickly, and even though they were occasionally "knee bucklers", I was OK with it. I went back to the surgeon, had a CT done, and was told everything was fine. By 2012, I was having further pain down my right leg after being on my feet for any length of time, and again had to sit down to alleviate the pain.

In October, having driven to Arkansas to visit friends, I got out of the car and found that my right ankle and foot had gone floppy...foot drop. I had no pain, but have not been able to walk normally since then. The following year In December I had a severe sciatic attack in Arizona (where I now winter) which took me to the ER, where I was given strong pain meds, and told to rest. A month later, I had a series of 3 epidural cortisone shots, which worked for a few weeks, after which I was crawling to the bathroom. It slowly improved, but left me with atrophy of my right quads. (I see that this post is getting pretty long, so I'll try to shorten it up now). After many months, I've seen the same surgeon again and was told that the L3-L4 disc was ruptured and I would have to be fused from L2 to L4. To have that done, I would have to wait until "next year"!

Not wanting another fusion (I'm now 73), I looked into ADR surgery with Dr. Ritter-Lang in Germany (it would likely be a single level at L3-L4) and am sending off my medical data package tomorrow, after getting an MRI in Buffalo (to avoid waiting 2-4 months for one here at home). . Because of my age, I may not be an ADR candidate, but I sure hope I am. I should know in few weeks if I am. If I am, I'll be able to still have the surgery this summer. I would like to hear from others what their experiences were like having this surgery done at Stenum, and in particular some success stories, as many of the posts I have read have been those with bad outcomes. Sorry for the long post; any further ones will be much shorter, I promise!

Rick