EMG

It sounds like the dr is talking radiculopathy. At least you can have a little peace knowing its not from the diabetes. My husband has 3 months to get his act together on his sugar meds or he will be doing insulin.

Susie

Me,
If only it was easy to find the location of our pain or nerve problems! You've already been through so many surgeries - an entrapped nerve just means a nerve is being compressed somewhere. "Somewhere" can be a lot of places. But maybe you will get lucky. I'm not sure how much the EMG can pinpoint the precise location of the problem. You'll just have to keep following up and asking questions about your options and go from there.

Good luck!

PaLady

I have had some EMGs that hurt so bad I had to terminate the procedure. Some involved particularly sensitive areas of the body if you get my drift. That is a gruesome test that should be banned. I am not sure what they determine that can't be determined in other ways that are less painful. I asked my Dr. if the termination of my EMG would change his treatment. He said not at all. My next question was "then why do you do it? To pump up your billing?" There was silence to that.

Modelmaker

Radiculopathy is a general term relating to nerve root irritation by the discs and/or spinal structures. It is not any specific nerve nor is it a procedure.

Modelmaker

Modelmaker,

My PM identified the nerves that were the irritants before the procedure. We had multiple trial runs with local before the actual RF procedure to identify exactly which nerves were the culprits. I had tried it before with just one nerve & didn't get much relief, but by doing multiples I finally got to feel better.

The RF procedure itself was not painful at all. I was given a bit of local, so perhaps that made the difference. I wanted to try one lesion without anything & it was starting to hurt, so my PM made sure to use local for all the rest of them. Normally, he wouldn't even have tried that, but he knows how nervous I get when I can't see the needles going into me, so he agreed to try it & it did sting! I feel really, really bad for you if your PM didn't give you any local. Often the RF's are done under sedation & almost always the surgeons at least use a local anesthetic prior to burning the lesions. I'm glad they got it right for the chemical rhizotomy, but really it should have been done all along.

I've talked with a lot of people who had their nerves cut out. I'm not sure they even do that anymore b/c more often than not, the nerve grows back with one of more neuromas. Not fun!


Rhonda,

The RF procedure does last different periods of time for different people. It depends on how fast the nerve can heal itself. Average time, I'm told, is 18-36 months. Since I'm a slow healer, mine lasted for 7 years.
From what I've read, chemical rhizotomies achieve roughly the same results. So it may be a roll of the dice as to which is better for any given person. Also, not all doctors will do both procedures, so I would recommend that you talk to your PM about what would be best for you & whether she is qualified to do both types of procedures. In either case, they should be doing something ahead of time to identify which nerve(s) are the culprits. This is both to make sure to get the ones that cause pain & to make sure they don't zap a nerve that controls motor function. Often, the trials are mandated by insurance companies, but even if they aren't, I'd make sure to get some kind of testing to find the nerves causing your pain.

good luck!
frances

The emg studies (needle type) measures the nerve conduction velocity of the electricty to the nerve. Slowing of the nerve impulses indicates a nerve problem. Have seen these done for both lumbar and cervical problems, as well as to rule out carpal tunnel syndrome. In the 80's and early 90's this test was done to identify what level was involved with the nerve such as say L5-S1 or or C-5-6. The accuracy of the test back then was about 75% so it is not the most reliable of testing. Kind of like when they did arthrograms on shoulders and knees back then, they were not all that reliable either. I read more EMG reports stating the test was normal rather than abnormal. Needless to say it was not the "gold standard testing" to rule out nerve involvment thank goodness. Between Ct's, EMG and myelogram & post myelogram Ct these were the tests done here to see if a person was a surgical candidate. Even after MRI's came out, in the beginning our drs here would not do surgery unless a myelogram was done.

Me when you see your dr again ask her what level of involvement showed up on the test...Susie

Frances, I had RFL of the medial branvh nerves done on my neck and back and mine were done pretty much the same as yours. My pm dr also did the trial prior to the RF as you stated to locate the correct area. Mine were done under light sedation because you do have to be able to answer his questions during the procedure. I did relatively well until he hit one spot in my low back and at that time I thought I would jump off the table. The pain he recreated made me sick at my stomach. After having the RF done on my neck, the pain under my shoulder blades completely disappeared, it was like a miracle. I could not believe a simple procedure such as an RF could alleviate that pain, everything else tried, failed miserably. I had more massage therapy than the law ought to allow and still could not get rid of the pain. I can't remember how many massage therapist worked on me either. My neck pain is pretty much gone, oh I get some pain here & there with my neck, but nothing like before. It only gave me almost a yr of relief with my back and then I was back to square one. The dr told me some RF's have lasted as long as a year, depends on the person. He did tell me it was a temporary treatment not permanent. I do know if that kind of pain returned, I would not hesitate to do it again. Susie

How expensive is an EMG and I heard that you cant take any meds prior to the EMG, is this true?

My spots were identified during the trials. In the trials, it did hurt for a second or two when my PM would torture my angry little nerves. Yes, it hurt like the dickens for a couple seconds, but no more than my normal spikes in pain.

For the actual RF itself my PM operated mostly off the saved images from the trials. He did need to use that buzzing machine, but kept it low. I could also feel the needle with the local going into the nerves, so that gave us some additional information reaffirming that he had the right spots on the nerves identified. My previous PM moved it to a much buzzing thing to a higher level, but somehow it didn't bother me as much in my neck (maybe b/c the muscles back there had atrophied?).

In any case, I wouldn't say it's something to fear. Definitely not any more painful than an epidural. And if any part of your EMG came back clean, then I would say that those parts of the EMG test would be quite a bit more painful than RF. The EMG is a horribly painful test unless you have the kind of nerve damage that it tests for. If you made it through that, you can probably make it through anything. :)

Me, I asked a dr here that does EMG's only and he said that taking our meds had no bearing on the tests. He explained since its an electricity type testing meds would not intefere one way or the other. Susie