Thanks Justin.
Drakos told me that for about the last a year and a half (more than 60 procedures before mine) he had stopped using micro fracture. He does "scrape down to healthy, bleeding bone" to create vascularity for the new cells. He believes this is the best treatment, regardless of size and position.
I saw probably 6-7 doctors before deciding what to do. Even at HSS, other doctors are doing MF. Kennedy does it. O'Malley told me that he would do the same thing as Drakos. (I have some other posts on here outlining what the various doctors recommended.)
I went with Drakos in the end because his approach seemed proportional for the extent of my problem -- which had reached a point that I needed to do something, but wasn't completely debilitating by any means.
Drakos also told me that he doesn't have 5 year evidence -- the procedure is still too new. He said he has had great success with it, but he just can't tell me what will happen in 5 years. That is what he articulated as his biggest concern about doing the procedure.
I was also told by Drakos that, if it didn't work or the repair failed in the future, I wouldn't be any worse off than before the procedure.
Kennedy had recommended against MF for me (he wanted to do a much more invasive procedure called OATS) because he believed in my case, due to the position of the lesion, MF would ultimately fail, and I'd be left with a bigger lesion than I started with. (These guys are all doing their best to read MRIs, and I don't think its a perfect science. He and Drakos and O'Malley all had different opinions about the size and exact placement of my lesion. Drakos told me post-surgery that the one they were primarily dealing with was not on the shoulder -- which was good. The small lateral one that was the secondary problem was on the shoulder)
Hope that's all helpful. My biggest suggestion is, if you can take the time and can afford it, get multiple opinions from doctors until you feel really comfortable with a doctor and a procedure.
Good luck!
Kerri
