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Good evening @birdman518 and @jenniferhunter It appears that you two are laying all the cards on the table. I don't want to interfere. I just want you to let your wife know that I agree with her remarks. I had a laminectomy many, many years ago for which my own hip bone was used for the fusion. This is the first time I have heard about anyone else having that type of surgery. Unfortunately, I agree with her. My hip was and continues to be the "worst part". I must admit I was surprised that the patient's bone was still being used for this surgery.
Whatever you decide @birdman518, I hope for the very best outcome. You have a strong ally in Jennifer.
May you be free of suffering and the causes of suffering.
Chris
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@birdman518 I chose to have a donor bone graft for my spinal fusion because if they had used my hip bone, my surgeon said I could have pain there the rest of my life. I didn't want that and I think that could affect my balance when I am elderly. I also know that every surgical site creates scar tissue, and scar tissue in the fascia. That is something I always work on. My neck was already tight because of thoracic outlet syndrome and putting an incision on the front of my neck from spine surgery added tightness, so I keep stretching to keep that from getting tighter. Doing myofascial release before and after surgery helped keep my muscles looser, so they were easier to retract during surgery. I asked my surgeon what I could do to help make it easier for him and he showed me how to use my hand to stretch my neck on the side for the incision... basically doing MFR. After surgery, MFR helped reduce pain and get my neck moving normally again. I have only one fused level lower down, so that does not affect my ability to turn my head. Other patients will have a different experience based on how much their movement changes because of spine surgery. The donor bone is milled to a specific size and it had a space inside so they could seed it with the bone spurs that were removed during surgery. It is really just the matrix because all the bone building cells have been cleaned from it, so it provides a scaffold that your body can use to fill in with new bone cells. The bone cells create the matrix and deposit minerals into it. That's a simplified explanation. There actually are also a different kind of bone cell that reabsorbs bone, while the others lay down new bone. That's why the bone graft disc can shrink a little bit, but they factor that in when they manufacture it. I had lost height because of my 50% collapsed disc and I got back my height after I got the bone disc replacement. My surgeon recommended against using my hip bone. Donor bone is used frequently and completely sterilized during the manufacturing process. I will be interested to hear what your second consult advises.