Recommend surgeon who'll be honest about if surgery will help?

@marcd2k I had spine surgery at Mayo Rochester with Jeremy Fogelson. He is a deformity expert and from talking with other patients I know he considers bone quality before surgery. He has asked patients to build bone first before planned spine surgery. Deformity experts have to consider bone quality when placing rods and screws because that can fail if the angles and forces are not balanced and the screws can pull out. They usually have advanced fellowship spine training to be able to do the big surgeries to reconfigure the spine. I recommend Mayo. My experience was stellar and my surgery was a simple one level cervical fusion.

@jenniferhunter Hello, and thank you for writing, Jennifer. It's always good to hear when people have had successful outcomes with surgery, especially with spine surgery. I will definitely be looking into Mayo if the treatment I'm going through now does not work out. I have been to all of the major hospitals in my city, so I will be looking out-of-town, out-of-state, and even outside the US.

Have a great rest of your weekend!
Marc

@jenniferhunter
I saw another surgeon at Mayo but the problem was he said I would be in a hotel after the surgery in the area. I can't imagine being alone in a hotel after spinal fusion. That freaked me out. I live in Brooklyn, NY so I would need a rehab place in Rochester.
I might check Fogelson.

@annie1 I found the hotels in Rochester to be comfortable and quiet. I had my husband with me. Do you have a friend or relative that you can bring along?

@marcd2k Thanks Marc. You may want to check the billing page on the website and call Mayo to confirm if your insurance is accepted there. I am 10 years past my surgery and have no other spine issues. I had a single level fusion at C5/C6 done without hardware. I had pain everywhere before the surgery and it solved all of that and I don’t have spine pain anymore. I wish you success with your journey. Mayo really is a great place. When I broke my ankle, Dr. Fogelson gave me a referral to an orthopedic trauma surgeon there and I returned to Mayo.

@jenniferhunter
After fusion I expect to be in immense pain which doesn't seem to be appropriate place to be recuperating I mean in a hotel without nurses. Doesn't matter whether it's quiet or not I would need medical attention and massive pain killers. I would need help going to the bathroom everything. They don't supply that in most hotels and they don't supply nurses and hotels.

@annie1 You say "After fusion I expect to be in immense pain..." - why do you think so? In general, hospitals do not discharge patients until their pain can be managed with oral medication.

Let's ask @jenniferhunter about her experience with pain control, and how long she was hospitalized.

@annie1 - no problem at all if you want to mention surgeons' names here. If you want a private message to have more private discussion, however, that's fine, too.

It all depends on your exact spinal condition and diagnosis. Mine was S1-L5 right herniation. An honest Surgeon once told me that : “you can have back pain with or without a scar”. He was referring to studies that show that after my kind of laminectomy - discectomy Patients who had the surgery I had, at the 5 year mark, are just about the same as Patients who didn’t. My view is twofold: (1) don’t expect the surgery to make you pain free….instead your goal ought to be to get the pain manageable with associated treatments such as exercise and heat ect, and (2) look at this kind of surgery as a pain management technique that speeds up the process to get to that five year benchmark mentioned above. Pain management is a meditation folks. My two cents.