How far have you traveled to have your surgery?

[kennedy]

Scojo
I'm a patient of doctor munish Gupta is one of the top scoliosis experts in the country. He really a fantastic surgeon he did my surgery 4 years ago

[Irina]

There is a member here called king14 - she is Dr. Bederman's patient. I remember that she had an unusual case - her spine was very flexible.

[Pooka1]

There is a member here called king14 - she is Dr. Bederman's patient. I remember that she had an unusual case - her spine was very flexible.

Unusual doesn't begin to describe it. She had two large NON-structural curves. They both bent out. She had NO structural curve and so her T fusion technically violates the rule to only fuse structural curves.

[ScoJo]

Scojo
I'm a patient of doctor munish Gupta is one of the top scoliosis experts in the country. He really a fantastic surgeon he did my surgery 4 years ago

Hi Kara,

Thank you for writing! I am glad to hear you had a great experience. Just curious, did you travel to see him or was he close to your home?

He has great patient ratings on doctor rating sites like vitals. What made you feel he was great? Mostly quality if the outcome?

Thanks!

Scojo

[ScoJo]

Unusual doesn't begin to describe it. She had two large NON-structural curves. They both bent out. She had NO structural curve and so her T fusion technically violates the rule to only fuse structural curves.

This is an area I need to learn more about - structural vs non structural curves. I know I have the classic thoracic and lumbar curves but have also been told I have a third curve within the larger lumbar curve.

[ScoJo]

There is a member here called king14 - she is Dr. Bederman's patient. I remember that she had an unusual case - her spine was very flexible.

Thank you, Irina! I really appreciate receiving this information. I will search her name and post to her!

[kennedy]

Scojo he is 3 hours from where I live.

Hi Kara,

Thank you for writing! I am glad to hear you had a great experience. Just curious, did you travel to see him or was he close to your home?

He has great patient ratings on doctor rating sites like vitals. What made you feel he was great? Mostly quality if the outcome?

Thanks!

Scojo

[susancook]

Like Linda, I too would favor close to home for many reasons vs a distance that would necessitate flying or driving for > 4 hours. If everything is somewhat equal, go with the close option. I had a great surgeon close to home, but my by far best postop support system was in San Francisco.

If you have a postop problem after you go home, if you are quite a distance from your surgeon, you cannot go for an appointment with the surgeon that did your surgery. To me, that is a big reason to be close. Also, if you are close, your friends can support your husband/wife/partner and good friends could spend a night in the hospital with you if needed.

The reason that some people have 2 days and others one day surgeries if you have both anterior and posterior surgeries is generally time needed to do the surgery. The time that is "safe" under anesthesia depends on many factors including age, health history, etc. I do not know the exact number of hours, but it is generally recommended that a person not be under general anesthesia for longer than about 10 hours or so. My anterior surgery took about 5 hours and posterior about 9-10 hours, thus you can see that 2 days was needed. So, if a doctor is going to do the surgery in 1 or 2 days, maybe ask exactly what he/she is going to do each day.

Good luck! Susan

[susancook]

Interestingly, he asked me if I had HT while we were on this topic. I sure the motive was likely that the research side of him wanted to gather that info. I did not, due to a 1/2 sister and paternal aunt who both had breast cancer.

Women who have their ovaries removed before the age of menopause and do not go on HT at least to 50 have a much greater likelihood of having osteopenia/osteoporosis. That's probably why he asked.
Susan

[ScoJo]

Women who have their ovaries removed before the age of menopause and do not go on HT at least to 50 have a much greater likelihood of having osteopenia/osteoporosis. That's probably why he asked.
Susan

Makes sense, Susan! Thanks for the post and all of the encouragement you offer to so many people here.