Thank you greatly Mark. I've done LOTS of research on PubMed & GoogleScholar & GoogleBooks and through the National Library of Medicine of the NIH, the Pediatric Orthopedic Society of America, and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, as well as on this site. I also have consulted formally with 2 orthopedic surgeons and 1 physiatrist and somewhat informally (although sharing the xray/mri reports and even showing the images) with other neurologist, orthopedist, and physical therapy friends, as well as 5 prolotherapy doctors (none of whom take any insurance).
The disturbing thing is that their recommendations are perfectly in line with their specialties and completely at odds with each other. The surgeons each said only surgery will solve the problem (and the one who uses PLIF explained why that's the best method while same for the TLIF practitioner) and that PT and prolo definitely wouldn't help; the prolo docs said that surgery and PT won't be necessary and that prolo will heal the connective tissue around the vertebrae and deal with the pain and then the body will heal itself; and the Physiatrists said prolo won't help, and please don't do surgery but 3 months of aggressive PT will almost certainly eliminate the pain and allow him to return to sports.
Orthopedists, Physiatrists, and Prolo doctors are all MDs but seem to have such different perspectives, especially on the value of corticosteroid injections, physical therapy, and prolo. In addition, they're very quick to order xrays and CTs without much thought to the possibility that this adolescent may end up with metal in his body and be unable to get MRIs in the future and so his radiation burden may be much greater than in others.
Now we're trying to figure out who to trust as we start investigating the research on Physical Therapy for spondylolysis/mild spondylolisthesis/disc issues. Thx again.
ani