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Mike's Disc Replacement Story
Lumbar Spinal Kinetics M6 Disc Replacement L4-5 L5-S1, April 2011
I wrote this story shortly after returning home from Germany.
Hello my name is Mike Schott, I'm a 52 year old physically active (hiking, biking, sand-volleyball, low-weight-lifting, golf, etc.) male, who was diagnosed in 1998 with Disc Degeneration Disease (DDD) in the lumbar region of spine. At first, there was just minor back pain along with numbness in left foot and toes. And at that time a good friend of mine, an Orthopedic Surgeon who made the first diagnoses and tracked the disease's progression, informed me the malady would steadily worsen with age and activity, so to minimize the symptoms, I needed to develop a daily routine of stretching, exercise and good posture. Where if the numbness became chronic and lasted more than six months, it would likely cause permanent nerve damage, and the probable treatment was spinal fusion of the damaged discs, when all other treatment options had been exhausted. But the doctor also warned, "fusion" was to be avoided at all costs as the good discs surrounding the fused area would likely collapse within several years and the symptoms would return, particularly if living an active life style, which obviously I did! Taking his initial sage advice, I was successful at minimizing the daily symptoms of back pain and foot numbness. However as the years rolled on, the numbness spread to both feet and moved up towards my knees in both legs and the back pain continued to rise from a one to a four, on a scale of ten, where later these symptoms would endure for weeks. But with persistence, the daily routine remained successful at eventually getting the week-long symptoms to diminish and disappear when lying motionless in a very neutral position for at least an hour a day. Also as the years passed by, the spiking back pain continuously interrupted my sleep when I moved, which during the early years was once to twice a night and during the later years progressed to jerking me awake nearly every hour and sometimes no sleep at all, despite taking high doses of NSAIDs on the bad days. Not the best quality of life for an active person, but like many others I learned to live with it, pain became a companion, sound familiar?
In late 2010, I eventually had a severe back pain and numbness "event" that lasted several months, likely caused by picking up a sock, who knows(?), where my daily routine was no longer effective at diminishing the symptoms. And at that time, I gave up almost all personal quality of life physical activities, except for a meager 15 minute daily walk, plus I was lucky to get a couple of hours of sleep per night, life officially sucked! I went to my Orthopedic-buddy, and he prescribed an epidural shot, that within weeks returned the pain to a manageable level, but only if I remained in-active, life still sucked but with a little less pain. This meager existence continued for a little more than a year, where in early 2011, I had another event, just like the previous year. It had lasted over a month and wasn't getting better, so I set up a doctor visit, for a week later but before I could make the appointment, the pain maxed out at ten, felt like a shotgun blast to my lower back and right hip, and right leg went completely numb plus I had lost partial bowl and bladder function, where it took me a half hour or more to "go". Immediately phoning my doctor with these new symptoms, he scheduled an emergency MRI of my lumbar spine region, which showed a severe hernia of L4-L5 disc and there was almost nothing remaining of the L5-S1 disc, it was starting to "auto-fuse". Not long after diagnosis, a Microdiscectomy was performed that alleviated the severe pain and bowl-bladder control problem, and I was again returned to lower level chronic back pain, numbness in both legs below the knees that both would steadily worsen with age and activity, plus I now had right "foot drop" from surgery.
In 2010, when the first big "back event" occurred, I renewed my early 2000 decade research into disc replacement as an alternate treatment to "fusion" and that's where I learned about Karma Spine, and Doctor Ritter-Lang utilizing the Spinal-Kinetics M6-L disc replacement. The M6-L disc replacement construction and Dr. Ritter-Lang's success rate implanting the next generation M6-L disc replacement appealed to the "engineer" in me, plus an Orthopedic Spine Surgeon near my home, who could only employ FDA approved first generation disc replacement's (the oldest disc replacement technology), recommended Dr. Ritter-Lang! Oh by the way, the USA managed health care system presently rarely approves and pays for disc replacement surgery, you likely must appeal-appeal-appeal, despite its better success rates over fusion, therefore I was going to have to pay for the disc replacement surgery out of pocket, this is another continuing story, but for me it now came down to "quality of life", while I still had some active years left. So, knowing I no longer wanted to live with escalating chronic pain and numbness and desperately wanting a better life, a week after the Microdiscectomy Surgery, I boarded a plane and went to Germany, where five days later I had the L4-L5 and L5-S1 discs replaced with M6-L disc replacement by Dr. Ritter-Lang. And I'm here to tell you, the very next day after the disc replacement surgery, all the back pain was gone, almost all the leg numbness was gone (the right foot-drop/numbness originating from Microdiscectomy Surgery remained) and a long lost friend had returned, male morning erection, unanticipated Bonus! My only regret, I did not have the disc replacement procedure performed a year earlier when first experiencing the first big back event in 2010, which prompted learning about the Karma Spine disc replacement treatment as a viable option, for me I lost an active year in my early 50s, it's irreplaceable.
Now sixteen weeks after the April, 2011 disc replacement surgery, I have no physical restrictions, where I have returned to four plus mile mountain hikes, cycling sixty plus miles a week, playing sand-volleyball, playing golf, etc. all pain free. The right foot drop is now almost gone and my friend continues to show-up every morning, "Sweet". Thank you Dr. Ritter-Lang, Karma Spine, Spinal-Kinetics and the hospital teams for your superior disc replacement implant, procedure and quality care, my life is now great. Obviously, hope all of you suffering from this or a similar debilitating disease find favorable results and return to a normal quality life and pain-free existence.
Sincerely, Mike Schott
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