The surgery itself went well and my recovery from the surgical incision was easy. I can sit longer than before and some bowel issues have improved. However, my overall recovery has been slow and difficult. I am able to sit longer but still have fairly severe pain and am dependent on medication to get through the day.

That said, people have a WIDE variety of recovery trajectories depending on how they go into surgery. Important is are how long you’ve had symptoms before, other spine conditions you may have, perineural conditions discovered during surgery (for example Dr. F found i had Cystic Dural Ectasia and fixed this in the same surgery) your overall health, and age.

According to Dr. F’s data only 70% have improvement (ranging from ‘SOME’ improvement to complete). I can honestly say i had ‘some’ because i can sit longer but that is about it. I had other spine issues going in so it’s hard to say where I’d be if i had a simpler profile.

Many people do have full or significant improvement within 1-2 years and we may not hear as much from them as they’re not looking for help or connection on platforms like this or Facebook.

A reason for surgery other than symptom improvement is to stop the disease from advancing. In that category i feel it was a success as i am not worse and definitely feel that i am very, very gradually gaining strength.

Some have mentioned Dr. Welsh saying 50% improvement. That’s probably an honest average prediction but who knows how it compares to Dr. F’s ‘some’ improvement category within which 70% fall into). Even though i fall within Dr. F’s SOME improvement, I can say i have not yet reached 50% improvement but i hope i do eventually! Dr Welsh uses a slightly different surgical technique and so comparing the two and their stats may not be apples to apples.

Dr. Welsh is is more of an academic and does all types of neurosurgeries, not just TC. Dr. F is a specialist in TC surgery and focuses only on this.

I agree with Jennifer saying that some surgeons will protect themselves because they lack knowledge. They may also be watching published info about this surgery which is inconclusive as to which technique is best. It seems that the situation these days is that the TC experts each have their own well honed technique but these have not been subject to scientific evaluation or scientific comparison studies. The field seems to be growing and knowledge of the condition slowly expanding but it is still definitely in early stages.