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Long vs Short Fusions

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  • Long vs Short Fusions

    I am starting to second guess my proposed fusion lengths, am I being ridiculous?

    I recently travelled to NYC and saw 2 different spine surgeons for 2 diff. approaches. Dr. Lenke propsed to fuse T10-L3. Apparently this is considered short. I figured also with my curve, that it would be more, should I question Dr. Lenkes choice and why? Im wondering if i need a much higher fusion also like so many others on here, I figure he has a clear formula on how he figures these things out and I am no expert. I am having a hard time finding peace with all of this anyway and now I am questioning the expert Dr's????

    The second Dr. proposed to tether T11-L3 with VBT, a completely different approach to fixing the curve. I don't know on this at all.

    I am wondering if I need to go ahead and see someone else and let it confuse me even more?

    Dr. Lenke had me bend over and he checked out my spine, then he had me lay on the table and pushed against the convex side and said, she's flexible to his associates in the room. He did take a standing full body x-ray also and looked at it pretty good.
    Melisse
    Age: 42: with 42* Lumbar, 32* Thoracic.
    Diagnosed with Adolescent Scoliosis @ 12 y.o. Thoracolumbar curve was around 28*
    Wore Boston Brace 2 -3 yrs

  • #2
    you are absolutely not being ridiculous at all. Ask loads of questions- given the seemingly orphan like quality of scoliosis treatment, it is all the more important.

    Maybe you could start with asking Dr. Lenke what he feels about the VBT consult- get him to convince you why you should not have VBT.

    The fusion levels sound about the same though- I am no expert but I think the fusion approach is to go from/to the first non-dogdgy vertebra so as to not put too much pressure on it and bugger it up so to speak. And then to allow the rest of any curve to sort of -self-straighten.


    Maybe it is different with VBT in that it is 'holding a curve'. I am sure there will be people more expert than me who can advise

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