Dr. Green's nurse called me back to respond to my question about performing a disc replacement (if I were to switch back to Kaiser). She said that they will only do one-level ADRs, since a two-level would be an "off-label" procedure. Apparently the FDA only approved the discs for one level, and the discs themselves are only labeled for use in one level. Delamarter and others feel comfortable using them on more than one level, but apparently Kaiser does not.
So, since it seems that I need a two-level disc replacement, that basically rules out returning to Kaiser to get the procedure. It doesn't make to just replace one disc if I have two discs which are causing me problems. When I saw Dr. Peppers, he mentioned that to get around these restrictions, some patients will get a fusion at the lower (L5/S1) level and an ADR at the next (L4/L5) level. But that doesn't really make sense to me, and I recall he didn't seem to think it was an optimal solution.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment