Nerve Burning

Just wondering if anyone has had this done and could provide me with some information about it.

Thanks,
Keribethmable

Keribeth,

My 3rd wrist surgery involved a peripheral neuroma which developed after the 2nd surgery. This 3rd (and final!) attempt to resolve the wrist pain included cauterizing the nerves comprising the neuroma....and then a hole was drilled on the side of my wrist and the singed nerves were bundled and literally placed in the hole.

This was supposed to eliminate the neuroma pain, as there is a very small section on my hand that is slightly numb....however, pain remains widespread from the initial injury (I fell off a horse) and the subsequent surgeries.

I'm right handed....I have increased pain and burning when I use it...this is one of the reasons I retired from teaching...something as simple as writing on the board would cause shooting pain into my hand and down my arm, I'd drop the markers.. the list goes on and on.

So what kind of 'nerve burning' are you possibly considering?

Keri,

They don't really "burn" the nerves, but they do heat the outer fat covering which damages the nerve temporarily, hopefully 6 - 10 months. It's called "ablation." It's usually done to the pain sensing nerves going to the brain at the lumbar or cervical "facet joints." The nerves grow back in time. Some people are lucky and get up to 2 years of relief. There are frequent posts in the chronic pain forum.

I have had 6 done, 3 on the left lumbar facet joints and 3 on the right. Mine seem to be helping, not perfect but better is better.

An MRI may or may not show much. It's not the key factor in getting an ablation.

There is a test you should go through twice before jumping right into ablation. It's facet joint injections. I had all 6 of my painful ones done at once (They only do ablations one side at a time.) It's just like getting other types of spinal injections. They numb the skin and deeper into the tissue, then inject more numbing medicine and steroid. Facet joint injections are not a cure! If they work even for a week or so you are a candidate for ablation. Mine were wonderful for about a month.

Ablation is done just about like the test injections. When you know what to expect it's not scary. Look up all the terms online and in the search box at the top of the page.

Last week I went in for a touch up. I was still having some sciatic-like pain. My pain doc poked around and said he didn't think it was in the sacrum but the sacroiliac joint. So far that injection (not ablation) is helping pretty well.

For ablation you want to see an anesthesiologist, not just a physiatrist who can do the lumbar injections. An anesthesiologist is also my recommendaion for anything to do with cervical or thoracic injections.