[Artificial Disc Replacement / Lumbar] 7 months post-op, extreme lateral total disc replacement [XLTDR]

[ChrisP]

Oh how I wish I found this site a year ago. If I did the signature correctly, you'll see it's been a rocky road for quite some time. The XL TDR was the light at the end of the tunnel, however there has been setbacks since my surgery in June 2010.
I'd love to hear from other XL TDR patients, their recovery, physical therapy plans and any other rehab practices they've gone through, i.e. counseling, aquatics therapy, etc...

Thank you again.

[Justin]

Oh how I wish I found this site a year ago. If I did the signature correctly, you'll see it's been a rocky road for quite some time. The XL TDR was the light at the end of the tunnel, however there has been setbacks since my surgery in June 2010.
I'd love to hear from other XL TDR patients, their recovery, physical therapy plans and any other rehab practices they've gone through, i.e. counseling, aquatics therapy, etc...

Thank you again.

Hi Chris,

Welcome to the Spine Patient Society.

I was reading your other posts and you state that you are still in significant pain 7 months post-op. I'm sorry to hear this. However, I will state that 7 months post-op is still very early post-op in my book. I've spoken to thousands of Spine Patients over the years and many of them didn't see progress post-op until the 1 year mark (some were even 1.5-2 years post-op). The "roller coaster" ride of post-op recovery is not fun. You will have many set backs and you will also have victories. However, it's key to remember the small victories because recovering from an invasive spine surgery does take the body a good time to heal.

Please keep us posted on your progress and do know that your recovery sounds similar to many Spine Patients.

We are here to support you.

EDIT: Also, if you do a search for "extreme lateral total disc replacement" or xltdr, it should pull up a lot of pertinent threads.