Osteoarthritis Community

Hi Sharim,

Let us know how this goes for you. I hope it helps.

You are quoting one of the greatest minds of the 20th century.
I will keep everyone informed. Of course after a very gentile examination I have a terrific headache now. It started shortly after I posted yesterday. This has the makings for a really bad one. I keep changing pillows, my bed is brand new and very comfortable. I find feather pillows to be the best for support because I can fluff and position them anyway needed. Oh boy this one will hopefully work.
I had the RFA done way back in 2006, it did not work so good but it was a different doc who was not so clean shall we say. I never knew a doctor to eat during a procedure before or since. Donuts one day. That bothered me because you should be in a kind of sterile environment when sticking needles into someone's neck, I would imagine anyway. No pre-meds of any kind, when I read the reports he made of the procedures, the RFA, he noted that the actual pulse lasted 90 seconds. Well, I can tell you that it was not a minute and 1/2. More like 30 or 40 seconds. I was fully awake and if it would have lasted that long it would have seemed an eternity. Really. He also had hit a vessel because blood poured out and down my chin onto the fluoroscopic machine, I thought it might have been an anesthetic when I opened my eyes I realized it was a pretty fast flowing stream of blood and I had to tell them (Dr. and assistant) that I was bleeding. They were just chit chatting and the actual ablation had not started yet they were still placing the needles. Eating donuts, chit chatting not paying attention to the patient at all. " Hey! bleeding here!". Then they had not grounded me, they have to attach an electorde to your leg and they could not figure out why it was not working. Again I had to tell them "Hey! not grounded here!"
I know that with the real pain specialist this will not occur. And I get to be minimally sedated unlike my 2006 experience wide awake.
I will let you all know as soon as it's done. It's not unlike epidurals but this is the neck not the low back. Most of all if it stops the sweats since they do the smaller nerves, rami nerves I think it is.
Thanks for your well wishes.

This is very interesting to me and scarey also. I've been seeing my doctor about my cervical spine stenosis and he talks to me about the neuropathy that's going on. (I see him tomorrow, my fingers are getting numb now) He isn't pushing surgery, I don't want it, but he said I'll know when I'm ready. I have insurance through my husband's workplace and I'm turning 65 this coming March and have to choose whether to stay on his plan or go with Medicare. Long story short, I was going to stay with his plan for awhile, he's only 61 and plans to work for some years yet. But he just got word that his employer (a large company) is changing to Consumer Driven Health Care next year, details to come in November. I looked it up and it looks like we're going to be paying for a lot more of our health care than before, that insurance pays well only after you've used up a large deductible (I've read $4000 to $6000 a year nornally) which kicks in after you've used up an alloted amount of money which the employee pays into (don't know how much??) for your health care in a given year. It seems employees are encouraged to pick and choose which treatments and procedures they want to have and whether or not to see the doctor, to keep costs down so the alloted amount lasts the year, Employers feel with regular insurance people have unnecessary tests, see doctors that charge too much, driving costs up. I'm already thinking I'm not going to be able to see my doctors as often as necessary (and I don't see them all that often) and I won't be able to get needed treatment as we can't afford any bills higher than we have now (we pay 20% that insurance doesn't pay up to a point), no way. I'm scared of it all, maybe Medicare would be better for me after all and I don't know how happy I'll be with that either, I don't want to end up disabled and chair/bed bound and incontinant like my mother did. I just hope nothing progresses quickly with this spinal stenosis.

Oh and, by the way, good luck to you, hope you have great results with someone qualified, the first guy was horrible, Please let us know the results, I have head sweats, none anywhere else, but I'm interested in what this procedure does for you.

I would ABSOLUTELY report this to the hospital and/or local and/or national medical association. This guy could kill someone. Seriously. I'm not exaggerating.

I have this problem every day and I can't stand it. It's embarrassing if I have to go anywhere or to dr appts. I luckily have severe hormonal problems and can blame it on that for now, but I too have spinal stenosis in both my cervical and lumbar spine. I have sciatica down my left leg and radiating numbness down right arm. The pain in my low back is tremendous and the sciatica hurts a lot as well. My neck doesn't hurt as much unless I've lost my range of motion. The numbness drives me crazy. I already have numbness in my left wrist/hand from carpal tunnel and pain from basal arthritis. Desperately need surgery for that so I can hold onto the steering wheel. Let me know if ablation works! Heard about it.