I have my life back and Dr. Perri made it happen. For those of you reading this that suffer every minute of your existence with chronic back pain, you know the full power of what I'm saying.
The bottom line is this - I now bend at my waist, can put on my sox, make the bed, pick things up off the floor without performing a deep knee bend combined with some deformed form of yoga, mountain bike some of the most treacherous trails in the country and the single most glorious thing of all, play sports with my son. I owe all of this to Dr. Perri. If you are suffering like I did, you know what I just said is all the testimony you need to put your trust into a doctor that made this my new reality and gave me my life back.
If you want a little more color and detail, here you go...
All the grandiose proclamations of a doctor's skills are great but my measures of true skill are results; especially those achieved under less than ideal conditions. To those not afflicted with the agony of never-ending back pain my measures of skill, and likely yours too, may seem childishly simple but when your everyday movement can bring you to weeping like a baby, the seemingly simplest of measures become the wholly grail of everyday living. My measures are bending at my waist, running, jumping, getting dressed, riding my mountain bike and wrestling with my son - all, to mostly, pain free. Dr. Perri has exceeded my measures of success.
As for the details, I'll cut to the chase and spare you the ins and outs of years of torturous physiotherapy, poor diagnosis, pain killers, homeopathic wishful thinking, acupuncture, chiropractic, massage and the multitude of "experimental" back pain remedies. I'm sure you can relate to most, if not all, of this. When I went to Dr. Perri, MRI in hand, he looked at it for 2mins. and spent the next 15mins. explaining my options in very clear terms - L4/L5 disc replacement or fusion. He, for good reason, was not enthusiastic about fusion which I whole heartedly agreed with (did my homework prior to my appointment). He and I chose L4/L5 disc replacement using ProDisc L.
Leaping forward to post surgery, it turned out my spine had fused itself, my disc had been pushed almost completely out and my vertebrae had grown "barbs" of bone on the surfaces of L4 and L5. When Dr. Perri saw this during surgery the easy route for him would've been to forego the disc replacement and complete the fusion my spine had already begun by itself. He didn't take the easy way out and I can't thank him enough. Instead, he rose to challenge, improvised, cleaned up the mess in my vertebrae and performed the disc replacement.
Today I am 90% pain free - I may be 100% pain free at some point but it's only been 5 months since my surgery and that's the true result as of today.
If you are looking for a doctor that will give you the greatest chance at a pain-free life my personal experience tells me that your best bet is Dr. Perri. His results speak for themselves and there is no greater measure of success than getting your life back.
An eternally gratefully patient,
Jason
May 2017
P.S. As if that weren't enough, Dr. Perri's office staff are on their game. They are big hearted and well organized which makes a situation that is naturally fraught with worry totally manageable. read more