RF Rhizotomy aka ablation

  • Thread starter Thread starter SKZ
  • Start date Start date
S

SKZ

Guest
Does this make sense to those who know this stuff? : Last week I had 2 levels of diagnostic medial branch blocks to see where they will do the radio-frequency rhizotomy...ablation. My Dr. was sure my horrible hip pain was from L4-5. He did the L4-5 and my hip still killed me. (and so did my back).Then we went back in and he did L5-S1..BINGO....hip pain and limping gone. The lower back still hurt, though.Tomorrow I see the same Dr. to discuss EXACTLY where I am getting the rhizotomy. My question is this:
When they did the 2 levels ,my back still hurt. The nurse told me it was because I was all injected in those levels and that causes pain. Well then how the heck is that diagnostic if I still had lower back pain with standing??? For some reason the dr. hasn't addressed my L3-4 stuff. My MRI said I had bulging disks, stenosis, and arthritis at L3-4, L4-5, and L5-S1. Then how come so much focus on the other 2 levels and not L3-4????? Apparently my stenosis is not that bad because 2 spinal surgeons told me so. Arthritis is supposedly the biggest culprit. Couldnt arthritis at L3-4 cause my pain???????????????? I want to make sure i get all the levels done to help my pain when I get the rhizotomy. Whats the point of doing a halfway job, ya know?
 
Most doctors are conservative and don't want to do any more than they have to. No procedure is without some risk. They don't want to up the odRAB by doing something at a level where they have no reason to believe is the cause of the pain.

When you were told arthritis was the cause of your pain, do you know if they were referring to an osteophyte or some bony overgrowth that is maybe causing the space through which the nerve must pass to be narrowed? This would pretty much amount to stenosis...but I was just wondering what they said about arthritis.

Could you explain how they did the nerve blocks? What was the procedure??
 
All I know is that I have FACET ARTHROPATHY at 3 levels. The MRI report said I had 2 kinRAB of stenosis at 2 levels and just one kind at another level. When i saw my spinal surgeon (who did my neck) he was such a moron. He told me the MRI report was of no importance .sheesh. Then I got his notes which he lied in them and said...that he told me the MRI report was TOTALLY wrong and that I had hardly any stenosis and that I should tell the radiologist that he was wrong. sheesh. oy, whatever. The 2nd spinal surgeon i saw said I had stenosis, but not bad enough for surgery. That one did say something about spurs when he did my lurabar Xrays.
Last week when i did the nerve blocks.. (medial branch blocks)..they injected L4-5 with nurabing med. and then I rested for a few mins. and got up and walked. I was still limping in pain. My dr. was pretty surprised, but luckily he had the brains to take me back in the room and do L5-S1 and when i went to walk, that pesky hip pain that makes me limp was gone. I just do not want the guy who does the rhizotomy (a different dr.) to only do L-5/S1. I definitely want at least that level and the one above it done. And like I said, I am going to ask tomorrow is he is SURE that I should not get L3-4 done since I have arthritis, bulging disks and supposedly stenosis there, too. The reason I am manic about this levels thing is because for years with my neck problem, the drs. only focused on C4-5, C5-6. I researched it a lot and i had symptoms of C6-7 radiculopathy. **I** had to be the one to tell all these Drs. the score. P.S. I ended up getting fused at C5-7. These drs. drive me nuts.
 
Back
Top