Artificial Disc Replacement Ireland/Europe Recommendations
Has anyone from Ireland gotten lumbar artificial disc replacement done and how did it go for you?
Hi everyone, messaging on behalf of my father (age range 55-60 and not overweight). Based in Ireland and has had long standing back issues with lumbar discs. Finally went for a surgery in Ireland after on/off issues for 10+ years back in 2020, where he had a microdiscectomy to resolve a herniated disc giving sciatica. Recovery went terribly and ended up bed bound for the remainder of 2020. Irish surgeon recommended fusion but thankfully it started to get better about a year later so we never went for the fusion, but never fully recovered. Seems to be some permanent damage to the sciatic nerve so as far as we know that can't be resolved fully. He's been managing well since then and has had some procedures done to try help this such as a Spinal Cord Stimulator which hasn't really worked as expected but didn't make anything worse. Unfortunately after a decent ride in recent years, he's once again felt a twinge and back pain and sciatica are chronic again keeping him off work and extremely limiting what he can do day-to-day.
I looked into lumbar artificial disc replacement back in 2020 and I'm sure it's come a long way since, but seems to be you would need to travel outside of Ireland for this (Germany leading the way?) and the worry then is after care as Irish surgeons would not touch him after going abroad for this . The Irish surgeons don't seem to have trained in the artificial disc replacement and suggest spinal fusion which scares the life out of him. He was told in 2020 by his surgeon that if he left Ireland for a procedure his surgeon would not treat him for aftercare (which is wrong on so many levels in my opinion but it's how it is...).
I'm asking this reddit group for recommendations or personal stories that could be of interest to us as if artificial disc could be an option we'd like to know more about it. If someone has gone down this road it'd be amazing to hear from you, or anyone from Ireland even better. Aftercare is the big worry for him since his last procedure never went well.