Stenum - My story

[cp7959]

I thought I would join your board and share my experience at Stenum Hospital. My intent is not to dicredit or promote Stenum. I believe sharing my experience might help others with their ADR decision. I believe before anyone jumps into surgery anywhere, they should gather as much information as possible.

I am several months post op from a 2 level cervical ADR surgery. The hospital and nursing staff is incredible. They have done a top notch job at making you feel comfortable and welcomed. The ward is all English speaking and I was there with several other Americans, so it felt as if I where in a ward back home.

My surgery was with Dr. Ritter Lang. The morning of the surgery was my first meeting with him. He came to my room with other Stenum staff. He did not look like a DR., nor did he have any paper work, films or other information pertaining to my situation. It was if he just walked off the street. So prior to surgery the only thing that was discussed was me telling him my problem.

From the time I left my room till the end of surgery was 1 hour and 10 minutes. Assuming it took about 20 minutes to be wheeled to the OR positioned in what I would call a "prestaging" area for surgery and then put under, the surgery itself was probably in the 50 minute time frame.

When I awoke I was in much more discomfort than prior to surgery. I am not refering to distraction pain, the pain was nerve related. The same nerve that was impinged prior to surgery. I explained the pain to the Dr. Michael (he is what I would describe as a non surgical Spine Dr.) and he said it was not unusual and would settle in time.

The stay in the hospital after surgery again was top notch. The nurses where wonderful and the other Americans where great people. When I left Germany I was still in pain, but tried to remain optimistic.

Now several months later and reflecting on my experience here's is my situation. I still have radicular symptoms. I have met with an orthopedic surgeon here and have had a CT. I have osteophytes at each of the operated levels. It appears some level of decompression was performed but not as complete as should be. Now I will proceed with steroid injections to see if things can calm down. If not I am probably looking at removal of a least one of the ADR's if not both. So not a very good situation.

My opinion is the Stenum hospital staff is outstanding and impressed with the facility. However I am very disappointed in Dr. Ritter Lang. He could have taken more time to do a proper decompression and take better care of me. Is there a chance that I could of had a nerve problem if I had a 2 hour surgery? Of course there is. However the speed at which my operation was performed increased the chance of failure. And the level of decompression is very disappointing. So now my life is spent trying to fix my problems and I hope to be on the other side soon, it's been to long.

I know that many have had good outcomes at Stenum. There situation may have been different. Maybe they had a different surgeon, or Ritter Lang was more careful. But all I can say is 6 surgeries where done on my day. The first left his room at 10:30am, the last came in the recovery room at about 7:30pm. Thats 9 hours that it took to do 3 lumbar and 3 cervical. All where multi level, but 1 single level lumbar. Todate I understand at least 3 are still having issues.

I am not trying to convince anyone to choose Stenum or not. But if I was asked I would not recommend Ritter Lang. In fact I would ask Stenums US contact Sue Hart about the speed in which surgeries are performed, just to get their opinion. I feel lucky I got an ADR and not fusion from Ritter Lang. Not because of the obvious benefits of ADR. But if I was fused and a proper decompression wasn't done, instead of removing a ADR, I would be looking at a laminectomy or corpectomy to clean things up.

Ritter Lang is probably a great surgeon if he took his time and would probably have a better success rate. On my day he was faster than I would expect, which to me opens up the opportunity for increased failure.

I should have done more home work in picking my surgeon. I did read many good Stenum outsomes on boards. But I also read many bad ones. I should have paid more attention to the bad ones. I should have stayed in the US and got several price quotes for surgery. I should have contacted the approved ADR reps in the US and asked for their help. And if I failed I should have got a fusion. So many things I could have done to give me a better chance.

I hope this information can be helpful to someone. And remember a wrong choice on our part can change the lives of our families and ourselves. Mine has. I love my wife and kids, but I spend all my time trying to be fixed. I have put their life on hold and filled my home with a level of sadness and depression. I am not the man I was prior to Surgery.

I don't blame anyone but myself.

[Gil Denis]

Hi Cp

I am sorry for your outcome. I wish you find a solution for your pain. Finding the right surgern it very hard to do.
All Surgery have good and bad outcomes Its a crap shoot

Please keep us posted

Gil

[Maria]

cp,
Back in '92 I had my 2nd spine surgery which was a percutaneous discectomy.
It failed very miserably with horrendous nerve related symptoms/radicular and for the longest time I blamed myself.

I said some of the very same things I saw that you posted and I can only imagine what you're feeling with regard to your decision but you thought the surgeon would do his job, you thought you were going to a world class surgical center, and you had faith.

We never know the outcome with spine surgery we only hope for the best and that's what you did.

I know I kept thinking is hindsight is so useful it should be foresight tho still again with spine surgery~ who knows..

Thanks for your input re your experience and let's hope that what you have reported might help others with the surgical inquiries and quest.

[wilsonrob]

I had a similar experience as you. The surgery went so fast that Ritter Lang cut the major iliac vein resulting in major blood loss and multiple DVT's. In addtition I continued to have leg pain. I ended up having many more micro type posterior decompressions and now my leg pain is mostly gone (I recently had my piriformis muscle removed that was also causing some sciatica). Why can't you get some micro surgery to decompress the nerves and open the foramen posteriorly?

[JKDE302]

O my, thats very, very bad news....can I ask which disc was used? M6? Pro-Disc?

[steve55]

This makes me feel fortunate that I went to dr bertagnoli. My 3 level ADR should have taken 3 hours but took 6 hours. When I asked Dr B why it took so long he said mine was a technically challenging surgery due to all the nerve decompressions that he had to do one at a time at each level. So, it was interesting that he did not go into mentioning the ADR's as being difficult to place, his answer focused on the decompression of the nerves. Though, as many here know my 3 ADR's had to come out due to staph infection, the 3 level ADR removal conversion to fusion also took 6 hours.

I wonder if you could remove the ADR's, have the doc decompress those levels and simply put them back in??

[Joe56]

I did speak with someone at Stenum and brought up these issues, first, nerve pain; it seems the nerves don't always respond or recover quickly and sometimes never do, each persons situation is unique. Too much decompression may be as risky as too little. I spoke with several cervical ADR patients and the results vary. The key seems to be don't rush to conclusions or second surgeries, give it time. Regarding the number of surgeries done at Stenum in one day. They tell me that there are other surgeons involved in the process, while Ritter-Lang is the surgeon that does the implant, a vascular surgeon is always involved and their cheif of surgery may also scrub in, They may do most of the access and closing, and Ritter-Lang may only do the implant process. His experience, thousands of ADR procedures, combined wirh an improved implantation process he was involved in developing, has shortened the ADR process, reduced blood loss and improved overall success. Still researching but this M6 looks like the best option.

[cp7959]

Thanks everyone for the support.

Maria - Do you still if have nerve pain from 2nd surgery. If not how long till it resolved.

Rob - Micro surgery is a very viable option if need be. The struggle will be the time it takes to identify the source of my irritation. Is it one level or two, left side or right, or is it complete inflammation from the disks themselves.

JKD - I have the M6

Steve - I guess I could look into removing and reinstalling ADR's if it came to that. Then you have all kinds of insurance issues. I could go to Stenum, but it wouldn't be something I would look into at this point. My gut feeling right now is if the disks have to come out, I should probably fuse, the joints may become painful.

Joe - I hope your right and time may resolve my problem.

Looks like your doing research for surgery, good luck and I hope the best for you.

[cp7959]

Joe,

In your research talking to other patients did you find nerve related problems? If so did they resolve and what kind of time did it take?

[JKDE302]

My mom had sent my MRI to stenum last week and I had already made up my mind that I want the M6 because of shock absorbtion...

Then I read this and now I dont want surgery anymore...

I even played basketball today for the first time in over a year and had a dunk in a game which is suprising because I just turned 30 years old...I have no nerve pain all the pain is in my neck because of stenosis or fibromyalgia...Thank you for posting I dont know what to do...I need to really think things over...I have manic energy for some reason today I think because I took some packet of pills my brother had called BSN Astro-Phex...

[Bill1961]

An improper decompression is one of the biggest issues with ADR surgery for success or failure. I'm not suggesting CP had an improper decompression. I just stating that if one wasn't performed it could be a problem.

JDK there are many successes and unfortunately to many failures regardless of where you get your surgery. If I where you I would get a local neurosurgeon opinion of what your problem is and their recommendation before I jump on a plane.

[New-disc]

CP,

The nerve going down my leg was compressed for 6-7 years before having surgery.

It took me over six months to feel the surgery was worth it.

(95% of my nerve pain is gone now)

I do still have flear ups from time to time.

Best of luck with your recovery!!

Todd

[fuzzy]

I am now 2 years post op lumbar surgery and it took this long for my leg pain to continually improve. This spring I had another strong relapse bout but I ramped my activity level way up this summer even at the risk of more problems with my neck and my nerve pain in my legs improved over last year. If the images show an improvement post surgery I would not rush to another surgery but give it time time time exercise activity give it time don't rush back to another surgery. Nerves take time to heal, years it seems. At least many months.

The only reason I myself now have another surgery is that I have waited years and my neck is getting steadily worse I have to take the risk. I do agree all the best surgeons have a risk. Even having read bad outcomes from Ritter Lang I would still consider to have him do a surgery as there is a reason they are still there. I do know for a fact that they have been trying to learn from past cases rather then simply go on no matter what the outcomes but to make improvements based on experience. I feel it is safe to go there unless you do have a difficult case then maybe worth to consider some one like Bertagnoli, Zeegers or even staying with a US doctor for easier or better follow up.