About a year ago I had L5-S1 , for foraminotomy related to lumbar spondylolisthesis.
I bought into the Dr. Jho story! Simple endoscopic procedure and 80-90% have immediate and significant pain relief.
After surgery, my pain was much worse and I developed foot drop instantly and lost my achilles reflex. Dr. Jho's surgical team came out after surgery and told my family member that they had to "manipulate the nerve" to complete surgery, and it took longer than expected as a result. The next morning they told me the same thing... but at that time, I thought little of it. The pain was the worse thing about the experience, and it lasted at a high level for about 7 weeks.
I went back to my home, out of state, because Dr. Jho was certain that after a course of Medrol Dosepak, I would fine. In initial phone conversations, he could not believe I was in that much pain. His statements were of extreme disbelief (almost like, you must be crazy). The percocet Dr, Jho prescribed, would not touch the pain. My wife called for me on a Sunday, and had Dr. Jho paged. He was extremely rude and critical for paging him on a Sunday. He had little to say that was helpful. He insinuated that I must be crazy and he has never had this degree of pain after any of his surgeries.
I went to a local pain doc and was put on a fentanyl patch. There was little improvement in pain. After a few days, the fentanyl patch was increased to 50mcg. At that dose I has some pain relief, but no where near complete relief.
I called Dr. Jho (although he always would try to pass off phone calls to his PA, who was nice, but not helpful with my issues), and he suggested we drive back. I told him that I would like to, but my pain was so extreme, I could not handle the drive. Again, he talked down to me, suggesting I could my level of pain was not possible. I mentioned the "nerve manipulation", and he shot back "I never manipulated your nerve!". I told him that his surgical team told me and my family member (seperately) that he did manipulate the nerve. He said, "I don't care what they said, I did not manipulate your nerve."
I went to my local primary care doc, a neurologist, and a couple of orthopedic surgeon. After several weeks, the pain was so bad, that I contemplated another surgery (fusion), with a local orthopedic surgeon. I resisted, since one particular surgeon told me 2 surgeries on the same area within 12 weeks was too risky. And the 2nd surgery was extremely invasive...
so I declined the surgery.
I was torn about what to do. I was in alot of pain (lost 15 pounds), and could not sit or stand for very long.
At around 9 weeks, I started to a little better. I proceeded with a nerve block (which I had tried a few times prior to surgery), and that also had helped. Since I did not want to go on disability, I went back to a moderate work schedule after 10 weeks.
I had a about a 50% improvement (vs. my post surgery low point) in early summer) so I went through physical therapy for about 12 weeks. I thought this would keep the progress moving. It did not work.
Hesistantly, in the fall, I went to a chiropractor (I had tried this once before, unsuccessfully), and he immediately spotted a significant leg length discrepency. Over the next 4 mpnths, I procreeded with 1-2 chiro visits per week. Today, I am at about 75% and I believe the chiropractor (and a diagnoses only he made) are the reason for my success. I hope to get this up to about 90% on a consistent basis.
Although I know a few people have had some good experiences with Dr. Jho, mine was quite the opposite. I would encourage everyone, to think closely about any procedure that they think will help their back, based upon Dr. Jho's work on my back!!!!!

I really don't have any experience with Dr. Jho. I am like GZH and had two standard fusions of the cervical spine. And I went with a reputable surgeon from my area. I will say when I first started experiencing occipital neuralgia and/or cervicogenic headaches, I read up on his technique(s) for this. And what I read made no sense to me whatsoever; totally opposite from what my NS and spinal PM told me I needed to have done. Not only that but that specific technique had the potential to cause even more permanent pain. And come to find out, the C2/C3 was NOT my pain generator; it was the C3/C4 which was a bit unusual. So chances are, if I had gone to Dr. Jho, he may have insisted and operated on the WRONG level! So, yep, some of his techniques sound too good to be true to me and/or false claims from what I have read.

How long ago did you have the procedure?

Please see my post above regarding the surgery and the first week.

I am completely pain free, now that I have returned to normal activities some of the symptoms have returned. I would say the surgery fixed 80% of the symptoms, the remaining symptoms are mild.

Prior to surgery Dr Jho said I have Stenosis at three levels, L5-4, L4-3 and L3-2. Before the surgery he said the worst point was L5-4 and he will work on that level only. He said it does not look that bad on the MRIs. He did mention that I may need to come in again to have another level done if the work on L5-4 doesn't releave all my problems. A few hours after the surgery he said that L5-4 was very tight and required a lot more work that expected; most likely I would need to have the other two levels done.

BTW...I played an hour of basketball in an over 50 league a few days ago with no ill effects...four weeks after the surgery.

I am thinking of having the L4-3 level done just before Christmas, so I can recover over the Christmas holidays as I did for the first surgery. It's nice having all the relatives waiting on you and I can watch all the bowl games ;-)

I will update again in a month or so

The failed spondo procedure (L5-S1 formanotomy) was performed in late January 2007!
I think there are many other people that have had similar experiences with Dr. Jho, but they do not post.

For all readers who read some of these negative posts about dr jho let me tell you this, I am 35 years old and have degenerative disc disease and within the last year i had L4-L5 and T2-T3 surgeries with dr jho T2-T3 being the worse with extensive spinal cord compression. This was a very dangerous surgery that would require precision surgical procedure and I opted to go with Dr. Jho because he had previously done 7, yes 7 of my fathers 11 back surgeries. He is 58 yrs old and was out in the yard digging post holes by hand for a fence he was installing yesterday and my brother whome is 33 yrs old after having L3-L4 done by Dr Jho was playing his usual 3 rounds of golf per week. Now before my surgeries I was looking at a life of misery and losing my job as a sales rep where i am on the road 12 hrs a day and I can tell you all I havent missed a day of work since my second surgery 6 months ago and my first 11 months ago. So what i am trying to say is that Dr Jho has saved all of my families lives and careers and when you have spinal surgery with any surgeon you will have serious risk of complications no matter how RENOWN they are the central nervous system at risk any time a knife slices into it. I am 35 and dr jho is in his 60's and i dont know what i will do if he ever retires being that i have hstenosis and herniations at 13 leves of my spine at the moment i really hope he starts teaching his techniques to others, but i will never trust anyone like i do dr jho.

sincerely - doing great!

Despite some of the repetitive criticism of Dr. Jho (including those who have never seen him) he did a great job for me. I can't recommend him enough IF you have the type of condition that he specializes in correcting.

The front office IS a little weak and slow but they get calls non-stop. Once I established a relationship with them the communications were no longer an issue.

I flew to Pittsburgh thinking that I was going to have a 3 level cervical surgery based on MRI films only. After I met with Dr. Davidovitch, (Jho's assistant until 9/1/08) and went over my actual symptoms, we re-thought the idea. After reviewing the MRIs and symptoms with Jho and Davidovitch we decided to stay conservative and only do one level. The reasoning was that he might be able to open the canal enough on one side to relieve subsequent compression. The downside was that I might have to come back. That fit my philosophy in advancing slowly and hitting the big spots first.

Dr. Jho IS very brief but that's because he doesn't need to ponder what he's doing and he's not paid to hold hands. I know others don't appreciate that approach but I certainly do. I could tell he was someone whom I needn't question.

I was concerned about intubation side affects do to a GERD/LPR issue. I was told to discuss it with the anesthesiologists, which I did, and they added a little more steroid to the mix. I really had minimal intubation issues - I ate the pork chop that was served for dinner as testimony!

In fact, after surgery, the main problem was urinating which is side effect of the anesthesia. I really had to go but I just dribbled.... It resolved itself the next day. Just drink lots of fluids to flush it out of your kidneys - stupid advice if you can't pee but eventually it does work. ( My sister's take on this was "you had spinal surgery and your main complaint is that you dribble...? Must have been good drugs! (Except I NEVER took a Percocet even though they gave me a jar of them. ))

Anyhow, the surgery was a success and I could sleep on my right side for the first time in years. I never had great pain, just nasty paresthesia, and it's going away. I also feel my muscles are waking up as the re-innervation continues. I was up and walking right after I recovered. Each day gets better and there's no bed rest - NONE! (Just no swimming for couple of weeks to keep water from soaking into the incision.)

I AM SO GLAD I NEVER HAD A FUSION or a laminectomy! I'll do this procedure over and over if I have to. Eventually I might have to have a fusion or an ADR but I'm sure I bought myself years of relief before I ever have to do radical surgery. Since I'm an active old guy that means a lot to me.

Also, Allegheny General Hospital treats Jho's patients with TLC. He and Dr. Jannetta are like rock stars there. Jho's patients get private rooms as part of the contract he negotiated with AGH when they wooed him away from PITT. That's a nice perk that he didn't have to do. It's more than just statistics...

I do agree that it's too bad that more docs don't know the technique. As younger deans come in to the med schools I think we'll see a jump in scope procedures and a slide in knife procedures. These young docs grew up with scopes so they're comfortable with what they're doing. Let's hope it spreads quickly.

The "repetitive criticism" about Jho, that is mentioned in previous post does not originate in vacuum! I would say wholeheartedly that I DO NOT TRUST this person. Never in my life had I encountered a physician that has so little compassion, kindness, patience, or interest in his patients. On the other hand, he certainly has more then just excessive mounts of ego, marketing skills and rudeness. Note: there is an exception, and it is if you are a “celebrity” wrestler. In such a case Jho will take a photograph of you and him., and even smile… The large number of negative remarks one can find in various web sites and forums come from many other that share the same personal experiences and impressions I had. I read a post that blamed it on his ethnic origin. Nonsense, any normal person that lived in our country for so long has some minimal people skills regardless where they came from. The wait time is his office was usually more then 2 hours, and no one would ever explain or appologize for this. The courtesy of the staff competes Jho's attitude. Jho did not examine me seriously (and his PA that helped him was realy inexperienced and with very little medical and clinical skills). In most cases Jho will basically only look at you MRI and will usually offer to operate (if you want it) - even in cases when most other surgeons would advise conservative managment. There is NO post surgical care, and Jho practically dumped me and instructed to follow with my primary physician. You do the math. Overall, the results I had were way below my original (naive) expectations.
He is yet to publish a serious peer reviewed article showing the value of his “technique”. Until then, his surgeries might help you or not, depends on your specific clinical problem, as well as your luck. I suggest you meet with at least one other neurosurgeon or spine surgeon before you make any decision.

Does anyone know where you can find additional information about the long term results from this Dr. can be found. I have heard good and bad about this surgeon and right now, the bad outweighs the good. Would like to read some additional info if anyone can lead me to another website or anything.

This is the exact experience I had as well. I am so glad you described it perfectly!!! I am starting to think all of these other people went to a different doctor. Please people listen. It is the weirdest doctors office I have ever been to in my life. People will do anything for a miracle or a less invasive surgery on their spine so they want to believe it is true. But it isn't. Since this person had the same exact experience as me, I know it is the norm not the abnormal.