HydroCision or equivalent

[ksptds09]

The doctor that I know of in KY is Dr. Harold Rutledge in Lexington, KY.

I had an IDET done almost 7 years ago by Dr. Derby, who is like one of the creators of the IDET, when I lived in California and Dr. Rutledge was recommended to me by him as the person in KY who also does IDET's. Nobody on here should be knocking the IDET unless they've had it done, experienced it and thoroughly researched it. If you researched it, you'd see it has almost an 80% success rate. Far better than a fusion or any other procedure you could have done.

I had mine done January 2004. I was prescribed 6 months of part time physical therapy but chose to do 9 months as a "just in case" measure because my injury had occured 5 years prior to the procedure and my leg muscles had become so weak.

In the past 4 years, I haven't had a single episode or painful moment. I can walk, run, ride roller coasters, ride horses and sit on crappy airplane seats again wih no problem. Half of these things I was told I probably would never be able to do again but I've done them and I've done them without experiencing any pain. It does take about 2 years after the procedure for you to have little to no episodes of pain. Discs take a long time to heal but you will notice results within a couple weeks after the surgery and you won't have pain unless you do something you're not supposed to do for the first few months. I only had maybe a handful of painful days in the first couple years and those only occured when I sat in bad airplane seats for more than a couple hours.

I have recommended the IDET to everyone I know. I was only 24 when I had it done and was told it was either an IDET, fusion or do nothing. I was too young for a fusion because once you remove the discs and fuse the vertebrae, you are almost guranteed to have the verterbrae above and below it, fail, thus you will eventually need another fusion. Fusions are generally not recommended for anyone under 40. They told me if I had a fusion, I would be in a wheelchair within 10 years so after a lot of reading and long conversations about it with my orthopedic surgeon, I opted for the IDET. At least with an IDET, you still have your discs.

The IDET is also NOT a "blind" procedure. The IDET and the discogram are performed on a live X-ray type screen. The doctor can see the actual discs he's putting the needles in to. You are also awake during both so you, yourself can see the monitor and see the discs, the verterbrae and everything they are doing.

It may sound like a painful procedure but you won't be as sorry as you would if you chose a different option. Every other option has a higher failure rate and at least with the IDET you still have your discs and if it doesn't work, then you can consider the more aggressive option and have a fusion. I'd do it every 10 years if I had to. It has restored my health to about 95% and given me back the quality of life that I had before the surgery. It was also about half the price of any other procedure.

The IDET is not an aggressive procedure either. Your discs are merely shrunk but you still have enough of it to provide the cushion you need. Taking out the disc completely as you would in a fusion...now that's aggressive.

[mmglobal]

ksptds09, WELCOME to the forum!!! Thanks for posting.

I'm curious as to what post-op protocol Dr. Derby was using after the IDET. Some doctors I know who still do IDET have the patients in a brace whenever they are upright for 3 months. (and they are supposed to avoid being vertical whenever possible.)

It's so wonderful to hear of such a complete recovery. While I'm not a big IDET fan, I know several people with your kind of success with it. Whatever works!!!

I wish I’d had a chance for thermal annuloplasty before I started having traditional discectomies back in 2000. While we’ll never know what might have been, I wonder if I’d have so much metal in my back if I’d been able to discover a different path.

Thanks again for posting. Such wonderful success stories are always great to hear. I wish you continued success.

Mark

[Maria]

Like Mark says.. whatever works! Glad to hear you had such wonderful results. Sure wish my traditional discectomies had left me in that good of shape!

[ksptds09]

Yes, I was in a brace for maybe a couple months? I don't remember the exact amount of time but it was at least a month. After that I did 3 months of physical therapy. I opted to continue my physical therapy another 6 months just for my own piece of mind and they said it wouldn't hurt. I'm pretty skinny and don't have much muscle mass so I wanted to make sure my back was extra strong.

I think if you have a good Doctor like I did, the IDET would have been the best decision you've ever made. Dr. Derby was recommended to me by numerous orthopedic surgeons when I lived in California.

I opted for the IDET since it allowed me to keep my discs and still allowed me the option to have the fusion if the IDET were to fail.

I believe there are still studies in the works where synthetic discs are being used in place of metal. I'd looked it up as a "just in case" measure years ago but haven't kept up with it since I've gotten better.