Fortunately, all went well. I lost 29lb in the three and a half months since my first appointment doing a sloppy job of keto and not exercising at all due to my bad back, bad feet and bad shoulders. They'll be submitting my paperwork to Cigna for approval tomorrow, and the staff said it usually takes up to two weeks for Cigna to process everything. Once the approval comes in they'll schedule me for surgery and I'll make an appointment with my PCP for my pre-op physical. My best guess is that I'm looking at mid-June at this point.

The good news I got is that I will not be having my procedure done outpatient as I'd previously been told. It turns out that Cigna requires an overnight stay, so I'll be having the surgery at the hospital and will get to spend the night. While I'm sure the doctor would not do it out patient if it wasn't safe, I prefer the idea that I'll be monitored for at least the first 24 hours following surgery.

So now I wait. Many people post about their nerves and fears yet I have none. My wife had a knee replacement two weeks ago and I was perfectly calm. I've had two epidurals in the last two months and didn't worry at all. I even took my daughter out driving on Sunday morning, her first time behind the wheel, and even then I was utterly relaxed. I'm really beginning to think that at this point in my life nothing is going to phase me any more.

Hope the approval wait goes by quickly. I've completed all my pre-op requirements short of a pre-op class I have to take which is scheduled for june 8th. My 90 day period is over mid june. Doc said two weeks for approval as well so he gave me a tentative surgery date of July 12th. The worst part of all this is the wait. The last two months seemed to fly by but now the days seem to pass so slowly. But it give me time to lose more weight I guess.

I've got back issues as well and was wondering about the epidural you had. What does it do exactly and does it work? The only thing I've done for my back was a short run at PT which I swear made things worse. My old PCP sent me without having any exrays or MRI done so they had no idea how to treat me and guessed on a new procedure every time I went. I did visit a chiropracter that offers decompression treatments but insurance doesn't cover it. I'm hoping the weight loss will make a significant change but worried it won't.

6 hours ago, J San said:

I've got back issues as well and was wondering about the epidural you had. What does it do exactly and does it work? The only thing I've done for my back was a short run at PT which I swear made things worse. My old PCP sent me without having any exrays or MRI done so they had no idea how to treat me and guessed on a new procedure every time I went. I did visit a chiropracter that offers decompression treatments but insurance doesn't cover it. I'm hoping the weight loss will make a significant change but worried it won't.

My first two epidurals were in one of the lower discs, L5/S1 I believe. They're ordered a third but this time it's a facet injection which would be in a different location since the first two have no helped at all. At first the insurance company would not approve an MRI until after I'd had x-rays (which were negative) and some PT. The PT didn't help so they did the MRI and found degenerative disc damage, the kind you just don't recover from. The epidurals were done with cortisone, a numbing agent, but apparently the first location was not the source of the pain. If the next ep[epidural doesn't help then one of the surgical options is to essentially burn off some of the nerves in the affected area. I don't know how significant a procedure that is and I'll worry about it if I get to that point.

Well, for future reference, it took four days to get my approval and set a date. I'm going in on Tuesday, June 5, just two weeks from tomorrow. And I'm still super calm.

That's awesome. Congrats on the approval and best of luck on the surgery and recovery. Keep us posted on how things are going.