Laurel,
Welcome to the iSpine community! I'm sorry that you were looking for answers based on the recurrence of symptoms.
I know many patients who've returned to high impact activities, but I don't think that's for everyone. For many of us, I believe that if you completely eliminated all problems at the operated level and protected that level against injury, we still would not be able to sustain a lot of high impact activities. It has nothing to do with the artificial disc... it has to do with our general condition, and the condition of the rest of our spine. Whatever the condition are that set up some levels for DDD... they typically effect more of our spine than just the problem levels... Our genetics, prior injuries, prior activities (cliff diving, motorcycle racing), etc.... all happened to us... not just L5-S1. So yes... recoveries, abilities, limitations, etc... are all over the place... many are still severely limited, yet consider their surgeries successes because they are still so much better than they ever expected to be. Others have very low ongoing problems and limitations, yet consider their surgeries failures because they expected to be 100%.
I know others like me... during my disability, age crept up on me. (I'm 4.5 years post-op from L4-S1 2-level Charite') Even though my lumbar spine offers very little in the way pain and limitations... being 50 does.
We'll all rise to an activity level that will be dictated by our core fitness, quality of recovery, dedication, discipline, motivation, risk tolerance, etc... Even without spine problems, we accept risks associated with high impact or high potential impact activities. With our past surgeries and histories, I believe that for most of us, the risk is slightly more, but still manageable. I live a pretty full and normal life that includes skiing. See the video I just posted in the Ski Trip thread of the community support forum. (Although, I don't consider the way I ski to be 'high impact', but I like to go fast and when I take a bad fall, it will be... so I'm accepting a fairly high amount of risk.... just as I did before my spine problems.)
Regarding your case, I know many people with the onset of radicular pain after ADR surgery. For some, it's new injuries at other levels. Some have 'not spine' reasons for radicular symptoms. Some have unexplained radicular symptoms that is probably associated with issues at their operated levels. My advice to you is... don't panic... It sounds like your doc is taking a measured approach.
I have several clients who've done MRN and have run the entire gambit of identifying leg pain after surgery.... some successful... some not. Call me if you want to chat for a while... I'll share what I know. (Number on GPN website)
All the best,
Mark
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