john123
Member
Post count: 30

Thank you again. It sounds like I should go to the surgeon that has the best results with the way their were trained. I know the surgeon that I just met with can perform the surgery with TLIF, but thinks that TLIF is a step below 360. and I agree with you, if he doesn’t like the results he gets with TLIF than he is probably not the right surgeon for TLIF.

I have consulted with 5 surgeons, – one wants to do PLIF, another stand alone ALIF, another 360 with perc screw, another 360 with posterolateral fusion and one other with TLIF. It would be nice if their was some commonality. As a result, I appreciate you putting all of this in laymans terms. Surgeons do not like to explain themselves or ever be questioned. You accept what they want to do or your out.

So PLIF is like doing two microdisectomies on either side and inserting two cages?

Is it that big of a deal to retract two nerve roots?

The reason why I ask is that there is surgeon locally with high ethics that I do trust that performs PLIF; he claims he can get a good result.

In short, I really do not feel comfortable with anyone going through my abdomen. I understand the process and it sounds like most people do rather well, but I am just not an ALIF guy. As a matter of fact, I think it is a short cut for a surgeon to not have to do as much work and leave you with the risks of cutting through the abdomen in addition to running up a higher bill for BNP, vascular surgeon, and more hardware. Perhaps I am a bit jaded.

I would like to leave my guts, arteries and genitals alone. So I am trying to figure out where to go from here, because I really only have one guy that goes through the back that I comfortable with and he does PLIF and not TLIF. He says he likes the angle better ?

So would it be prudent at this point to to find a surgeon that has expertise going through posterior ? Pars comes out, screws go in, fuse verterbrae and gutters and I’m good to go !