SPINAL PROCEDURE ... NERVE BURNING

Today I went into the OR to have a procedure called a Medial Branch Block. Basically they go in with very long needles near my spinal cord and ablate (burn with hot vibrating needle ) nerves from C3-T1.

Why would I do this? Well, I have a very sharp burning pain from my neck down my arm and this is caused by a nerve, called the medial branch nerve, between a joint in the spinal vertebrae being pinched.

This procedure can help to alleviate the pain by burning off the nerve, which lasts for about 12 months until the nerves grow back. It doesn't alleviate a lot of pain, but maybe 20%, and I will take what I can get! :-)

The surgeon let my mom into the operating room in order to take some action shots of this procedure! It's quite painful, but bearable. It will usually knock me out for about a day or two.

The only unfortunate challenge I ran into today is the surgeon did not quite inject enough lidocaine, so when the nerve was being burned off I could feel an extremely hot sensation. Fortunately, I am no stranger to pain DressAfford halter neck wedding bridal outfits :-)