[johnb]

HIPAA is the statute that covers privacy and portability of health insurance. Since the insurance benefits were pretty good on my exwifes plan which I was covered under, I decided to keep and pay the premiums as quality care was important at the time. The laws vary from state to state, but if you exhaust your COBRA benefits, you are considered HIPAA compliant. Keep in mind that I am no insurance expert, just from current research into my own situation. As long as my current plan that I have doesn't offer a conversion plan (I have a call in to the administrator), the Georgia state insurance commission will help me find a plan and I will not have a an exclusion clauses. They have a name for the process but I can't remember what it is called. Having the number of treatments I had over the years, I imagine I'm in some database and the insurance folks would love to keep me off their rosters.

I had a facet injection a long time ago and it didn't help but the epidural did. I haven't had any other kind of diagnostic procedure other than the discogram. I'd be willing to do an EMG if the surgeon would order it but he seems content to see how I am doing in another 3 months. If I can obtain coverage, I'll feel better about keeping it in for a while longer. At the moment, I'm feeling decent but am tired of all the up and downs.

As far as the dynesys, some think it can slow down further degeneration, some don't. Without adaquate unbiased testing, who knows? I'm hoping I get better and this implant will hold up for awhile. Perhaps my discs will heal up as well as the facets too. I've definetly had symtom changes over the years. I've read that facet problems have certain symptoms like lower back pain in the mornings. check. Also, activity would bring about pain later on, a few hours afterwards, check that too. Additionally, low back pain with extension. check that too. I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume that my facets were painful. Their is absolutely a certain low back pain that I had that is resolved. There was another on a different board that had dynesys, started having pain again after a close to a year, then had ADR. Sometime after, the dynesys was removed and I saw a post about them having facet problems lately. The surgeon had said that the dynesys wasn't doing anything but it does unload the facets if properly installed.

Mark, I know that you work with doctor B with many of your clients and I've read he has lots of experience with the dynesys and has helped develop a second generation stabalization device that improved on the dynesys's shortcomings. I read the figures about how many have been "installed" in Europe but the long term data is scarce. It would be nice to see some long term study results or even hear of a few individuals that have had it long term.

Johnb