Melody,

That man sounds amazing! You have to know he is probably in incredible pain. So, to retain his sense of humor is a wonderful accomplishment. I truly admire folks like that.

Okay, for the discs and fusions and such. A good NS will tell you that they CANNOT guarantee pain relief. What they are looking for is instability and neurological deficits. If you present with these, there is not much else you can do except opt for surgery otherwise the neurological deficits CANNOT be reversed and you WILL become disabled. It is not like PN where there is hope that nerves will regenerate. This is quite the opposite...it does NOT get better. I have had two cervical fusions for two different reasons. Do I still have pain? Yes, spasms. But not to the degree I had it before. It was the most absolute horrible pain I have ever had in my life! The PN is bad enough but this was screaming, horrendous pain. For instance, I have given birth lol and had a hysterectomy. Both of those count as a 2 for me on the pain scale. The cervicogenic headaches were a 5000! I really thought I was dying.

Anyway, I was NOT a candidate for the cervical ADR. One, because I smoke, I know, I am a bad girl. But the real truth was because I have degenerative disc disease all up and down my cervical spine. Again, the criteria is EXTREMELY STRICT. I could list it all out here. But suffice to say...you almost have to be in the utmost perfect health and basically only have ONE level that is bad. Yes, they do them in Germany and they do multiple levels. But, really, who has the money to fly to Germany? And besides that, from what I have read, a big risk with an ADR is revision surgery which can be life threatening. So, even IF I had been a candidate, and from what I have read, I am glad I went with the standard fusion. Now, there are people that have had them and are doing quite well. But I often wonder, for how long. Fusions or ADR's they both have their risks and pro and cons.