Questions for Neurosurgeon?

[Guest guest]

My herniation has increased since last October when I had my first MRIs done,

I'm now at 23mm from 14mm and have abnormal csf flow. My NS highly recommends

surgery and believes my chiari is causing my headaches and my other neurological

issues. He said he wouldn't be offended if I went for a 2nd opinion - but he IS

my 2nd opinion, my 1st opinion said I would need surgery eventually when I was

at 14mm.

The thing is...I found this NS on my own, (online) because he is part of a large

Neuroscience Center affiliated with my local hopsital in the city I live in.

The NS and NL my GP recommended me to both turned out to be terrible so I heard

so good things about this place from " people that know people " and from online.

But I don't know much specifically about my NS...I asked his nurse to find out

how many chiari surgeries he has performed and what kind of incision he will

make and how much hair he will shave - most pictures and success stories I'm

seeing online are from Dr. Oro in Colorado saying that he just took a thin strip

of hair in the center of the skull and nearly all of it grew back - whereas I

read some other doctors will shave nearly all the back of your head and then the

hair won't grow back over the scar.

There were a couple patient reviews on my NS online and he generally had good

reviews - his only bad reviews were on his bedside manner, and in my experience

most surgeons don't have great bedside manner anyway and so far he's been nice

and friendly to me so I will just put that aside for now - what is really

important is his skill as a surgeon.

I really can't afford to leave Central Pennsylvania to have the surgery, I need

my insurance to cover the costs or I would make the trip up to the New York

Chiari Institute.

Any suggestions on what to ask or how to get more comfortable with this NS

before I set a date? The tentative date right now is June 26th.