Yes, I am retired Navy as well. But, I have used the VA up to this point because I retired at 60% disability, so going through the VA I pay absolutely nothing and up to this point things have been better than great with the VA. However, when I do go outside I will pay 20% because of my companies medical insurance. I have found a surgeon in the Vegas area, it's just going to cost me a bit more. Probably about $2,500 for the MRI alone. But at this point it is more than worth it.

Eric3237, it's funny you mention flat benching because doing that with lite weight gives me no pain at all. Doing rasies doesn't either but overhead presses are going to be out of the question for a long time, if not forever. It's so odd because although I am still working VERY lite, the movements I expected more pain from are giving me none at all. I am going to hammer my legs for a while and stick to some isolated movements until this passes. I ice it every day and take a LOT of glucosamine. He did mention that it is still early and it could take several more months to really see a difference in the soreness and I talked to a guy the other day that said he had almost the same problem and it was 8-10 months for him as well. I've managed to stay pretty lean through all of this so at least I have that going for me. I had a feeling this would be a long road so I'm paying more attention to my diet and cardio. Swimming seems fine so far so although I do it, I'm VERY careful. Thanks guys.. This site and it's members are great. There are other sites I've posted this issue on with zero responses. You guys are great and talking about it helps with it a lot...