Have you had ALIF Spinal Surgery? How did it impact your Spyder Ryding?

[Peter Aawen]

Inquiring minds want to know - Have you had ALIF Spinal Surgery - Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion, ie. not 'just' any form of spinal surgery, but specifically this type of spinal surgery, where they go in from the front.

If you have had this type of surgery:

1. how many vertebrae were involved for you;
2. how did the surgery impact your Spyder Ryding;
3. did you follow a formal exercise program afterwards, with a physical therapist, physio, or any of those types, or just exercise at home by yourself;
4. how long did it take you to recover, get back on your feet, & then back to ryding?

Are (or were?) there any Pro's or Con's for you? If you knew before the surgery what you know about it now, would you still do it? Do you think this ALIF Surgery was a good idea &/or successful for you? Would you recommend it to anyone, especially if they were once very active but now having increasing issues & pain due to numerous destroyed discs & damaged vertebrae?

 

[Little Blue]

I have not had the surgery. My Doctors are saying 'this and that'.
I am going to wait till a later time.
Just saying.

 

[CloverHillCrawler]

I didn't have that done, but the reason I switched from riding 2 wheels to 3 is my back. I have both degenerative disc disease, osteoarthritis, and good ol' regular arthritis in most of my major joints hips, shoulders and no meniscus left in my knees.

I had to have a laminectomy done on L3-L4 which causes some instability and a lot of pain if I twist too much or "lean" too hard. The surgery did wonders for me and it made so much of a difference I could feel it when I woke up in recovery and was thanking everyone that was there. The Spyder let me get back to riding again as I can't do 2 wheels without having some major pain and spasms during and after riding. The only issue I may have is after a really long day of riding the Spyder, I will pay for it by having severe muscle spasms in my legs when I'm trying to sleep later that night. But this also happens to me after a long day of work as well if I lift and twist heavy objects.

My mom suffered from the same thing in the same area of the spine, hers was way worse than mine and required a fusion. She went through several weeks of pain after they deburred all of the spikes that grow inside your spine from this and did the fusion with rods in between the discs instead of a plate. They then placed a solution on the rods which attracted the calcium in her system to the rods and completed the fusion. Once she had recovered from the surgery it made a world of difference with regaining her mobility. But I don't know how this would hold up under the stress and bumps you take on the road.

For me recovery from the laminectomy was about 3 weeks but for my mom it more like a couple of months with the fusion.

Unfortunately I can't say about a time to return to riding as I didn't do any during that time as my mom was having her medical issues at the same time I was and I was also assisting her with my brother who was in a nursing home with a traumatic brain injury. She passed in 2015 and my brother passed in 2019. I bought the Spyder to get back out riding again after we moved to Frederick from Raleigh during the start of the Pandemic and I wanted something to get back out on the road instead of being trapped inside.

 

[Tango]

Inquiring minds want to know - Have you had ALIF Spinal Surgery - Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion, ie. not 'just' any form of spinal surgery, but specifically this type of spinal surgery, where they go in from the front.

If you have had this type of surgery:

1. how many vertebrae were involved for you;
2. how did the surgery impact your Spyder Ryding;
3. did you follow a formal exercise program afterwards, with a physical therapist, physio, or any of those types, or just exercise at home by yourself;
4. how long did it take you to recover, get back on your feet, & then back to ryding?

Are (or were?) there any Pro's or Con's for you? If you knew before the surgery what you know about it now, would you still do it? Do you think this ALIF Surgery was a good idea &/or successful for you? Would you recommend it to anyone, especially if they were still very active but now having increasing issues & pain due to numerous destroyed discs & damaged vertebrae?

Mine wasn't lumbar, it was cervical. Three hernitated discs, surgeon removed the two worst ones, 1989, said come back in a year to get the third one. Did PT for two months after that. I had no choice, had to have the surgery as it was curling my fingers on my left hand. I had stopped riding before this and didn't get back in to riding (workmans comp, young kids) for another 6 years on two wheels. I'm fine now, and riding my Spyder with no problems. That third disc moves around once in a while, lets me know about it. LOL My surgeon was the "Professor of Surgery" And pioneered "Micro Surgery" and going in from the front.

 

[Peter Aawen]

I'm a bit surprised that so few have responded, it's not as if any of us are growing younger; there've been quite a few mentions of spinal surgery on the board here over the last few years; and this ALIF surgery method has seemingly been growing in usage and is reportedly quite successful - or at least, that's what all the documentation I've seen so far has suggested... Maybe it's not a prevalent as it's made out to be?!

 

[TheMariner]

Hi Peter,

I haven't had any spinal surgery so I'm not in a position to comment either way, but reading up on it, I'm amazed by 2 aspects of the ALIF approach:

1). It's less invasive and faster healing compared to PLIF... which really sounds counter intuitive considering all the guts that has to be gone through just to get to the spine; &
2). The advertised hospital stay of just a few days.

Medical science sure has come a long way!

 

[RogerC60]

I had PLIF surgery last October. Surgery Thursday morning, went home Saturday afternoon. Like @TheMariner, I'm surprised that ALIF is considered less invasive. Perhaps it's because PLIF requires cutting through and moving aside the strong lower back muscles,