I am all for the discogram, and I was able to get mine covered by w/c. Let me just briefly tell you my situation. I was set up for a fusion and need to have both my O.Surgeon and a N.Surgeon do the surgery. My Dr. was an OS and his thought was that he was almost postitive the pain was comming from L4-5. He said that when they had me open, if the pain was from 3-4 or L5-S1..he would be able to see it when they opened me up. (Basically, in this situation, he did not need to know the exact area causing the pain. He would make a good size incision and whatever needed to be worked on, he would take care of.) When I went to see the NS, she said that she wasn't comforable just going in and fixing whatever they find at that point. She insisted I have a Discogram prior to surgery. She explained she would prefer to cut a 2 in. incision, in the area they knew was causing the pain, rather than cutting a 4-6 in. incision.
I did have the discogam, it showed without a doubl that my pain was comming from L3-4 (not 4-5). I was happy that I had it done. Yes, it is not comfortable and there is pain, but I will also tell you that I had the radio frequency and thay was painful too. So, you might as well find out exactly where the pain is comming from before they do the RF.
Now, if the Dr. wants to do the RF first, that won't be that bad, since they do a test first, for the RF, to make sure they got the right area that is causing your pain. So, it may not make tha big of a difference. If you can have the disco. great, if not, I would not worry about that. But, if you have the RF first and it does not work, then I would absolutly request a discogram.
Tip: If you have the Disco. call the center/office that will be doing it. Ask them if they put you in a concious sleep or if they use a type of medication that will help you not remeraber the procedure. I learned about this from these boarRAB and I am glad I did. The 1st place that I was going to go to, did not use anything. (Let me tell you, you want something, and there are many places that use medications such as this.) I ended up calling another place and they did do the medication and that is where I chose to go.
Keep us posted and I wish you the very best.
Lorie:angel:
