If you have to have surgery, please know that there is a HUGE difference in thoracic spine surgery from one surgeon to the next. I may be looking at a 1-level thoracic fusion. I had lunch with Dr. John Regan, one of the top thoracic spine surgeons and developer of several minimally invasive techniques. We talked about XLIF (extreme lateral interbody fusion). He says my surgery can be done in a surgery center, maybe even on an outpatient basis. I've seen films from one of the developers, Luiz Pimenta of Brazil... 4 level (or more??? memory not what it used to be) XLIF thoracic fusion in a woman in her 70's... walking around the next day like nothing happened... prior to surgery, she was VERY impaired.
I've been chasing my thoracic spine pain for 4 years now, getting ambiguous results from multiple each facet injections, costo-vertebral joint injections and ablations, intercostal nerve blocks. The most recent adventure has been 2 thoracic epidurals with some pretty amazing results.
Contact me off the forum if you want to talk. (private message or via ispine or GPN website contact forms.)
All the best,
Mark
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