I never thought that I would be saying this but I am really aggravated with these menopausal symptoms! I thought I was going to have an easy time of this for a change as I had just stopped having my cycle for three months at a time. Now I am paying for that nice time I was having. I have been having mega issues with this for the past two weeks. I feel like I have been having terminal PMS which is no fun at all.
I have been seriously considering getting a herbal supplement since I am not really keen on hormone replacement. There are just too many side effects to the hormone replacement. However, I do not want to increase my chances of osteoporosis with my DJD I have already. My spine surgeon told me I was a prime candidate for it since I have scoliosis and due to my short stature. Ugggh, I cannot win for losing sometimes it seems.
Well I have been doing some research and I have found a really good herbal supplement I am going to try and wanted to share it with you. It is called Menozac Natural Menopausal Relief and it is sold by Market Health. They offer a free 30 day trial and a 90 day money back guarantee. I don’t think you can beat that anywhere!
The herbal supplement contains Vitamin E, Soy, Black Cohosh and Damaiana. Vitamin E we need for health in general as women. Soy is a natural plant estrogen. Black Cohosh and Damaiana work to relieve the symptoms of menopause and also those of PMS such as anxiety, stress, bloating, night sweats, etc. I feel this is a very good formula.
I will let you know how it goes. If you are looking for something like this as I am, I would highly recommend you check this out as well!
I decided to take some time off to try to enjoy the holidays.I felt I had spent my whole year spinning my wheels, being miserable with my health problems and the aggravation from the insurance company, and very little to show for it. I wanted to have at least some time without worrying all day every day what was to come next. I resumed my search for treatment including new options in late January, 2006. I was happy to find a couple of things that were available to me that I had not really considered before.
One was surgery in Germany I found out that
many other people that were in the same boat as me were mortgaging their houses, emptying out 401K’s, their savings, taking out loans, etc to finance their way to Germany to have one of the worlds most renowned spine surgeons do the procedure on them. Dr Rudolph Bertagnoli was one of the first surgeons in the world to do this procedure and has done thousands of them over the past 25 years. He takes patients from all over the world on a cash payment basis. Surgery in Germany is considerably less money than it is here. At the time after the money exchange it came out to be around $35,000 for the surgery, trip and stay there. Unfortunately our finances could not stand the additional burden at the time. Now I think back and wish that maybe we had taken the plunge. Of course hindsight is 20/20. I was considering this but it was last on my list due to the financial burden.
I also found out in the meantime that there was a surgeon here in the US that was performing a hybrid surgery one level fusion and one level ADR that was being approved by insurance companies for the most part. The patient might have to pay for the disc itself which cost $4,000 but this was much better in my eyes than paying $35,000 and being out of the country for 3 weeks.
So I found a patient advocate in Mark with Global Patient Network. He helped me get all my records to Dr Fabian Bitan in New York and I consulted with him later. Dr Bitan told me that at the time he felt I was a candidate for the surgery and that he was willing to do it once I was ready to go ahead with the procedure. I was not able to travel to New York until June as no one could care for my children here for two weeks so I had to wait until they were out of school.
In the meantime, I continued going through pain management. One of the things I found that really helped my chronic pain and sciatica was a radio frequency ablation. This is a procedure that is done under sedation where using guided imagery, the physician goes in and burns certain nerves coming out of the disc spaces. This can stop the pain response from going to the brain. It can take anywhere from 6 months to one year to start to grow back so a person can get long term relief from sciatic pain with this. This helped me for a period of about 10 months before I noticed that type of pain coming back again
However, since there were several components to my pain generators, the pain management physician had to use a combination of treatments in order for me to be able to even function during this time.
Image courtesy of kwest19 at stockxpert.com
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So I visit my new spine surgeon in Texas and I learn that I am a good candidate for the new ADR procedure! Hooray, right? Well yes until my insurance company decides that they indeed do not cover it now due to the fact they consider it “investigational” at that time. Now try to get them to explain what this means and the difference between that term and experimental is like trying to pull hen’s teeth and my grandma would say!
I spent the next four to five months in constant severe back pain working on legal appeals to get my surgery approved. Even though the device was FDA approved at that time, insurance companies were still reluctant to cover it. This made no sense to me as from a financial standpoint, ADR cost half what the two level lumbar fusion cost. From a physical standpoint, most people were back to work within six to eight weeks as opposed to a three to six month wait for normal function after a fusion. The chance of causing further damage to the spine was a huge concern for me as well!
I researched, sent truckloads of paperwork to the insurance company and spent hours on end calling their representatives and my medical case manager which was a huge joke! What I found out is this. The first appeal is judged worthy or not by the in house medical director at the insurance company. This can be any kind of doctor. In my case it was an OB/GYN. Now how can someone in that field decide if I need this surgery or not? Well they tell me the “next” appeal level will be “independent“. Yeah, right! The insurance company decides who does this appeal and “pays” the doctor that does the assessment. In my case this was a orthopedic doctor. His report had several errors and I was furious when I got it. I found out, through an oooops at the insurance company that this doctor was local to me.
I politely got on the phone and called his office to see what his field of expertise was. I figured well if he knew better how to take care of me than the other 8 surgeons I had seen and consulted with, I would give him a whirl. I asked about an appointment for my low back issues and was told he does shoulder surgery! HUH??? I then said well I am confused he did an evaluation on me for my insurance company and I thought he was an “expert” in this area. You are telling me he doesn’t even treat spine patients? So, so much for an “independent” evaluation! Personally I cannot believe that anyone who is paid by the insurance company will be particularly sympathetic to my plight as they would like to get further referrals. I also found out later insurance executives get HUGE bonuses for saving the company money by denying procedures such as this.
My third and final appeal was sent with a letter describing all the “travesties” that they had put me through and that I was appalled that someone who had no knowledge of up to date procedures or treatment in this field could evaluate my situation thoroughly. This time after another 30 days, the cut off for them to approve or deny appeals, I was denied again by a neurosurgeon.
By this time I was exhausted both physically and mentally. I contacted the representative at my husband’s employer to see if anything else could be done since our policy is self paid by the company. I was told I could appeal to them to get the funds for the surgery even though the insurance had denied it. I had 30 days to do this. I received all the forms to turn in for this on the 31st day so that was a bust!
Chronic pain takes its toll on your physically and mentally to say the least. Fighting with insurance to get medical treatment just adds to the frustration and angst that I had to go through. My life revolved around this issue and it was sad to say the least that I could not live or enjoy my family due to all this!
More tomorrow!
Images courtesy of Pocheco at stockxpert.com
For the next several months, I felt like a hamster on a wheel. I was prescribed one medication after another, tried physical therapy which made my problem worse, and as each week went by, my life changed more and more. Chronic pain takes its toll on your not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. Each day I would wake up and wonder if I had the energy to get through the day. I never knew from one day to the next if my back pain would be such that I could not work or take care of my family. To say I was frustrated and angry is an understatement! I had worked in nursing for over 15 years prior to becoming a massage therapist and I was truly saddened to see how medical care had become what I considered a farce in most cases. Doctors want to pat you on the head, tell you it will be OK and hand you a pill, hoping you will not come back! When you do, its lets try this test or that, only to be told there is no hope for you other than major back surgery that you do not want to have. And, who could blame me after my previous experience? Chronic pain management seems to be almost nonexistent here in the U.S. and even the programs that are available are not the best.
I did hours and hours of research to find that there are more people in the same situation. Many suffering with chronic back pain, more than I would have ever dreamed of. I found support groups and information on new treatments that I would have never found if I had not taken a proactive approach to my own medical care!
One of the most important and absolutely fantastic support groups for people with chronic back pain and considering surgery is The ADR Support Group. I met many people there who were just like me. Sick and tired of crappy treatment at the hands of surgeons who either were not knowledgable of the new treatments for spine care or just did not care. Unfortunately, most surgeons seem to have the bedside manner of a toad so if you are looking for someone to be caring, this is not the place to find it!!!
I also found out about a new surgery that looked very promising for those suffering chronic back pain called Artificial Disk Replacement. This type of surgery had been done for over 20 years in Europe with very promising results. The beauty behind this type of surgery was that it required much less recuperation time than a lumbar fusion did. Lumbar fusion is the “standard” here in the US for problems like mine.
ADR as it is called does not place stress on adjacent disc levels that can cause them to herniate or degenerate in the future like fusion can. ADR has been successful according to the studies done in Europe when doing multiple levels. The success rate of fusion goes from 80% at one level to a less than 25% success rate when doing multiple levels.
So, armed with this knowledge I approach my family physician about this new surgery. Luckily for me, her brother was an engineer and had actually worked with the artificial discs development in this country. She told me that if I wanted to pursue this she was OK with it.
I found a surgeon in a well known and reputable spine center in Texas that had worked in clinical studies doing over 100 of these procedures and made an appointment for consultation. Now I am in Tennessee, so we braved a 12 hour car ride to go see this surgeon. Before I went that far I had called my insurance company to be told this procedure was “covered”. Otherwise I would have never made the trip!
Image courtesy of redbaron at Stockexchange.com
My journey continues tomorrow!
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ADR, Uncategorized | kimmy47 | 
November 3, 2008 4:39 pm | 
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