Medical Endeavors w/ my Herniated and Degenerative Lumbar Disc

Pardon my French. But it's true. I still haven't gone jogging, but I have done my series of quick jogs, trying to catch up to people, stopping a parking ticket, etc, without a hitch. I can feel that my back is still healing, but damn is it going nicely! I've been carrying luggage, driving for hours, partying my butt off in Miami, sitting down for extended periods, all without a single drop of pain. My back does get tired by the end of the day, but it's only normal. Again, I give this device, procedure, and doctor my deepest respect and appreciation.

So I sent over the CT-Scan images and the youtube video over to Mr. Boeree a few weeks ago. There was a slight mishap on the outbox front, and apparently his response never reached my inbox, so I messaged him again today and got a response a few hours later. His response: "I guess you didn’t get my earlier reply, but I was really impressed with the CT scans which I looked at both from your images and the YouTube posting.  Your radiology friend clearly has a great set up, providing 3D images of that quality, with artefact suppression that is so good!  Maybe part of that is the fact that the metal parts of the implant are titanium, which gives less artefact, at least on MRI.  I’m not sure it makes any difference on CT, which makes the quality of the images all the more impressive." I guess he likes the images! Nonetheless, he requested a "check x-ray (15° up angled AP and lateral flexion and extension views centred on L4/5) at about six months post surgery. The flexi...

Boy this is awesome. My brother is dating a girl who's parents own an diagnostics & imaging center in my city. I got the hook up and got the royal treatment is selecting any time of scan I wanted. I told them I wanted plain x-rays of flexion and extension of my M6-L Artificial Disc, but they had no idea what I was talking about so they just put me though a CT-Scan. Right out of the scan they let me sit down and see the results... AMAZING VIEWS OF THE DISC. I got back a CD and compiled 20 images of a 3D scan and plugged them into iMovie on my mac, then to youtube, to create this transitional 3D-view of my M6-L (seen in red in this video): Pause the video at any time to look at the image in more detail. But for a bigger video and more detailed view, go here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD01rBLh_og Those horizontal protrusions coming from the M6-L are just distortions in the imaging.. the titanium is so strong under the x-rays that it distorts the fields around it. You ca...

Happy new year's everyone! Little has changed since my last post in terms of pain. There is a tiny bit of sciatica every once in a while (about once a day for about 2 seconds), and sometimes I feel some pain when bending forward, focused on the vertebrae. It's very minimal, but it reminds me to keep taking it easy. On the other hand, I feel better than ever. I can lift heavier things (like gallons, etc) comfortably. I can bend forward a little more now (about 40% of my bending limit, and I don't want to go further than this yet). I am drinking like I used to (socially) without any pain the next day. I am sitting comfortably for very extended periods of time without any of the old pain! Everything is pointing to a 100% success. Let's wait for the 3-month mark. Let's also wait for the nerves to settle down and heal. I am getting x-rays done this thursday, December 6th. Let's hope they turn out ok!