I shouldn't really be posting here until tomorrow, as I'm seeing Dr O tonight. But I've had my myelogram, and since it was hard to get back to Dr O (2 months), I saw my old Spine guy, Dr N. He said that clearly an AP fusion needs to be done, including L2. But he thinks my pain is from either the L5 lower facet, or S1 disc, and would want a discogram to decide whether to fuse S1. He's someone I can talk with, and the feeling I got is that the surgery is for pain, in his view, and not to prevent pedicle fracture, but that this is not going to get better, only worse, over the years. So while I can tolerate the degree of pain now, I'm planning on going ahead.

Today I have f/u with Dr O, who seems to specialize in revisions. I never got around to checking out Dr Bitan, forgot about it until yesterday, when I read this forum once again. I wonder if I should? Is he a revision guy also? Dr O ONLY does revisions, and everyone I talk with in the medical community calls him the go-to guy for this.

So it might be L2 - S1. I hear that fusing L5/S1 is more problemmatic than other levels. Is that so?

Also, does anyone know how they can identify my pain generator more specifically? I have a feeling they want to inject the disk, and if it hurts, declare that my generator. But I'm pretty sure there are a bunch of places they could touch and I'd feel pain. How do they figure it out?

Thank you,