communicans nerve block; minimally invasive fusion surgery

[Guest guest]

Has anyone had either of these 2 new procedures done?

I am currently going through a series of communicans nerve blocks, and if they

consistently work, the doctor will use radiofrequency to burn the nerve, which

may provide up to 4 or more months of improvement at a time. The communicans

nerve is one of the nerves that they have found can carry the pain signals from

the disc. But apparently it varies from patient to patient how much it relieves

the pain. I have had 1 block done so far. The block is supposed to temporarily

relieve the pain for up to 8 hours, and is done just to see how likely burning

the nerve will help. With mine, I had about 50-80% of relief for a few hours.

So they are going to do it again to see if they get the same results.

I spoke to a doctor in LA who now does " minimally invasive fusion surgery " .

There are only a few doctors in the country who do this. The only ones who do

it regularly are in LA, tennessee, Chicago, Kentucky, Minnesota he said. So it

is still somewhat of an experimental surgery. It is similar to a one level

posterior fusion, but they have a device that allows them to do the whole fusion

with brackets and screws and everything through just four small 1 inch

incisions, instead of the usual big long incision. So it oftens decreases the

recovery time, but they dont know yet whether the long term outcomes are the

same as the regular fusion. I may consider this down the road if things get

worse for me.

Tristan

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