The short version: I suffered 6 years of excruciating lower back pain due to degenerative disk disease, did every non surgical alternative available, and eventually saw four of the world's top surgeons in different countries for 2nd/3rd/4th opinions who each gave conflicting recommendations of complex procedures with long recovery times. I then met Dr Byers who recommended a much simpler solution and with over 2,000 operations under his belt, I selected Dr Byers and his experienced team. I have had literally zero pain ever since! My wife says I instantly lost "that pained expression" and my kids say they have their fun-loving Daddy back. Thank you Dr Byers, you're a miracle worker!
The details:
For six years I lived in crippling pain due to degenerative disc disease, experiencing shooting pains at L5-S1 with every single movement of my body, every single day of my life, relying on mouthfulls of stomach-rotting painkillers to be able to make it through the day. At 45 years old I was effectively crippled for life by pain. To find a solution I did over a year of due diligence, paying for the professional opinions of four of the World's top spinal surgeons, including the Queen's own surgeon in Harley Street London. While they all agreed on the problem, they said they could not guarantee to take away my pain "because MRIs don't show pain". They recommended conflicting solutions, all of them surgical, all of them pretty radical and all with long recovery periods. One said do a multi-level PLIF from behind. Another said don't even consider a PLIF and instead insert an artificial disc via my abdomen to preserve range of motion. Yet another said stay away from artificial discs at all costs as they're too new and may need to be removed 10-15 years from now.
Enter Dr Byers, who had been recommended to me by multiple people at my church based on their own successful outcomes.
Dr Byers initially suggested various non-surgical alternatives, which I exhausted without gaining lasting relief. He said he would operate on me if he could be as certain as possible it would help me, so he sent me for a diagnostic test injection which temporarily numbed L5/S1 and allowed me to move around like a young man, pain free for 60 minutes before the pain returned. This conclusively diagnosed the problem and Dr Byers agreed to operate.
He said he would perform a relatively straightforward operation that would fuse my L5/S1 segment, be minimally invasive, and have a rapid recovery period as he'd go in through a small insision in my abdominal region avoiding unnecessary damage to any of my back muscles. He explained everything in a way I could understand and was very patient with my endless questions. An almost guaranteed outcome, a straightforward operation, a rapid recovery, all clearly spelled out -- what's not to like!?
This sounded almost too good to be true, so I did some research and discovered Dr Byers has done over 200 operations per year, for 20+ years. He often takes on cases that others would find too tough and is also called upon to fix other surgeons' work. I realised that having performed 4,000 operations, he knew what he was talking about, and had the experience to cope with whatever may happen once in the operating theatre, having pretty much 'seen it all'.
I'm glad to report that the operation was a complete success. It was over before I knew it. I recovered rapidly and I have not felt even the slightest amount of back pain ever since. To say that Dr Byers completely changed my life would be the understatement of the century!
It's worth mentioning here that for spinal surgery to be successful you must rely on a host of people in addition to the surgeon. The nurses who work with the surgeon, the people who coordinate the various medical teams, calendars and expenses, the operating theatre staff, the hospital nurses (who were fantastic at Marin General), the physical therapy staff, etc. Because he is one of the top surgeons in the world, Dr Byers has hand picked his extended team and it shows. They are all incredibly caring, knowledgeable, willing to help at any time, and most of all tremendously experienced and great at what they do. Every surgeon wishes they had a team like this. I want to specifically recognise Dr Byers' nurses at Mt Tam Orthopedics, Alison and Sara, who helped me whenever I needed it, often squeezing me in at short notice. And Whitney for coordinating all of the medical teams so efficiently so I could focus on being the patient.
In summary I'll just say this -- having traveled the world to find the absolute best spine surgeon available, I can categorically state that I found him: Dr Robert H. Byers. read more
