[Kathy]

Gil,
I agree with all the above posters. It took a doctor showing me and explaining to me that my disc would never get better, that I had DDD, it was bad, and the wait and cross your finger approach wasn't going to work. When I was shown, on my MRI, the disc, the severe tear and explained what DDD was, I realized that surgery was the only way I had any chance of getting out of pain. I knew that I could not live like this forever. I then researched drs, procedures, etc and made the best decision I could with the information I had. I wanted to have no regrets, regardless of my surgical outcome and I don't. I do feel that my old pain is gone and that this is just surgical pain, that time and therapy will heal. I guess time will tell if I am right. Make a pro and con surgery list and then decide what is best for you. There are a lot of strong opinions on both sides of the surgery decision, strong opinions on what surgeon is the best, etc, etc. Your job is seperating fact from opinion and deciding for yourself, what is best for YOU (because ultimately, you are the one who lives with your decision, not the surgeon, not those of us on this board, nobody but you).

Like Justin said above, they told me that I am in the 10% that for whatever reason did not improve with conservative treatment (damn, too bad I couldn't have used my crazy odds to win the lottery!). My hubby is in the 90% that the first injection worked for and has done great for 2 years with it. With all they know about spines, there is so much they don't know.

Good Luck in your decision process, researching and whatever route you decide to go,
Kathy