From my brief reading, I learned that spinal fusion candidates may not necessarily be artificial disc replacement candidates. It is not an ideal procedure for people experiencing instability, spondylolisthesis, degenerative scoliosis, or people with many levels of disease.

On the other hand, artificial disc replacement aims to preserve motion. In the North America., only the Charité Artificial Disc has been evaluated and approved for people with one bad disc to be sued for a single level degenerative disc disease between Lumbar segment 4 and Lumber segment 5. Europeans seem to have a somewhat different attitude about the condition and might be willing to perform multiple disc replacements simultaneously.

Artificial disc surgery has two major advantages to spinal fusion:

1. You can directly treat the diseased disc segment that creates pain and disabling symptoms
2. Preserving motion with an artificial disc replacement may prevent mechanical problems experienced by other discs, although the procedure may not totally eliminate these


Does that help?

Hi Kathy,
I had artificial disc replacement in lumbar L4/5....done by one of the "best" doctors in the world...so advertised.. I spent entire year after ADR in bed, couldnt sit or stand, in horrific pain. My surgeon (in Germany, Straubing) said that he doesnt see any problem...while all other doctors from USA, France, Netherlands, UK and even Germany-clearly could see that the disc that was put in me is almost 2X too tall and prior to the surgery I had a collapsed disc (bone on bone) and degenerated hyperthrophied facets-which are absolute contraindications to the ADR. I had a revision done 3 months ago and it was the most horrid surgery that anyone could imagine...Having hard time recovering.

Before going for ADR, please, research as much as possible about contraindications and your conditions. I am posting on a different forum and there are number of people there who either had a revision after ADR or are still searching for answers there...My username there Job13 and the topic name 'One year hell ADR in Germany. Revision Prodisc to fusion'.

It might be useful to learn more before going into the surgery! I dont want anyone ending up like me, at 33 y.o.... The problem is that according to published studies, ADR causes facets degradation...

Sure does sound like a total compression.