Living with Pain is Not Living

  Medial branch nerves are the very small nerve branches that communicate pain caused by the facet joints in the spine. ​ These nerves do not control any muscles or sensation in the arms or legs. They are located along a bony groove in the low back and neck and over a bone in the mid back. The purpose of this procedure is to determine if the facet joints are painful. There is no other test which gives this information. CT Scans and MRI scans will not tell if the facet joints are painful. This test is only temporary, but if it shows the joints to be painful, a long term procedure (radio frequency lesioning) can be performed. ​ ​ Procedure Overview ​ The medial branch block injection is an outpatient procedure. The patient is placed on the x- ray table and positioned in such a way that the physician, using x-ray guidance, can best visualize the bony areas where the medial branch nerves are located. The skin is scrubbed with prep solution. Next, the physician numbs a small area o...

"Pain has two general categories; acute and chronic. Acute pain signals injury and generally resolves itself in less than 30 days as a person heals.  Chronic pain refers to pain persisting longer than three months.  It can last months to years.  Chronic pain can be mild to severe, annoying to debilitating, and continuous to intermittent.  Chronic Pain Syndrome (CPS) is a common problem that presents a major challenge to patients and health-care providers because of its complex nature. Approximately 35% of Americans have some element of CPS.   Nearly 100 million people are affected directly or indirectly and are partially disabled or totally disable due to Chronic Pain.  The cause of CPS can be injury, infection or ongoing disease.  In many cases, the cause of the pain is idiopathic, or unknown. Some of the major causes of CPS include arthritis, headache (especially migraines), low back pain, cancer, joint pain, and neuropathy or nerve pain....