[Maria]

After my 2nd spine surgery which failed and left me in horrendous burning pain all the way from my waist down my legs to my feet for 5 years.. I am very reluctant to have a 3rd spine surgery.

Part of my reason is what Energy wrote about in terms of lack of response or just a cold release from care after a failed surgery. Now certainly the surgeon at the time (Neurosurgeon) could have told me what he did during the surgery and how much disc was removed and so forth but he wouldn't discuss anything and he referred to his buddy an OSS for a 2nd opinion post op and that person practically told me I was crazy and made some absurd recommendations re my pain.

Dr.Delamarter is authorized to do my 3rd spine surgery if and when I should decide to have it however I had heard he was not that great at responding to failed surgical patients and that is something I must admit that furthered assisted me in deciding to hold off on the surgery with him.

When I was authorized to have surgery with him I found that I didn't care for his office staff's responses to me in terms of questions and just returning calls in a timely fashion.

I had seen another doctor in Dr.D's office before being authorized to see Dr.D and that surgeon was supposed to respond to some of my WC paperwork (to the state) in a certain time period~ he did not and my case was backlogged by 5 months due to that error so that didn't please me at all.. while I don't think it was his fault I do think the office was not running as efficiently as I would like and therefore my paperwork which was very important to me just got "lost" and/or not dealt with in a timely manner.

Dr.Delamarter has a wonderful surgical reputation and I could only hope that I would be a success should I choose to have surgery with him because it seems the successful patients fare extremely well with him even tho I had heard it was an effort to deal with the office. I guess they are extremely busy. That being said~ I'm most important to me so if my case cannot be taken very seriously that's my deciding factor re having surgery with someone.

I made an error the last time with my choice of surgeons as I didn't feel comfortable with him but WC had auth'd the surgery and I went along with the program so when the end result was a failure and literal nightmare ... well I had to deal with my decision/choice to have the surgery and the outcome.

This is not to say you wouldn't like Dr.D or that you shouldn't seek him out for an opinion because I think he's an excellent choice and perhaps the office is much better these days as I'm talking about 2006 experience. One thing for certain I'd recommend utilizing Mark's services if possible~ I think having Mark there makes everything flow much better or at least that has been my experience as Mark has accompanied me to at least 3 consultations and most importantly the 2nd surgical opinion for my WC case that really helped me to get surgery authorized (at the time I wanted to have it 3 years back/nearly 4).

Good luck Gil~ I applaud you for hanging in there and continuing to seek information and opinions. My post isn't met to deter you in any fashion, it's just my own personal experience.