Neck and back pain can interfere with your life and make simple everyday tasks difficult to carry out. Having a surgical procedure done such as Endoscopic Rhizotomy can relieve your chronic back pain as well as eliminate muscle spasms. If you are experiencing spinal joint pain, a facet rhizotomy may help relieve your pain. This procedure involves disabling the sensory nerve located at the facet joint. The facet joints connect different vertebra of the spine together.
Endoscopic Rhizotomy
This is a surgery which goes beyond the procedures of the facet rhizotomy procedure. It is a minimally invasive surgery which provides a direct endoscopic view of the nerves and spinal anatomy. Part of the surgery involves making an incision in the spine allowing room for a camera to be inserted. This surgery can be done on the thoracic, lumbar and cervical spine, or even on joints that are causing you pain. Through cutting a section from the nerve, the nerve is unable to regenerate.
How To Know If You Need The Surgery
In order to know for sure that your back pain is coming from the facet joints, a diagnostic procedure can be done called medial branch block. Medial branch block involves an injection close to the medial branch nerve which temporarily blocks pain. This can help your doctor know for sure whether or not you are suffering from radiofrequency rhizotomy. If the diagnostic procedure does temporarily relieve your pain, an endoscopic rhizotomy can be performed to prolong the relief.
If you are experiencing immense back pain from the facet joints, a procedure called endoscopic rhizotomy can be performed to relief the pain. Unlike the common facet rhizotomy, this procedure provides a visualization of your nerves through implanting a camera inside of the spine. In order to know for sure whether a procedure like this could help you, a diagnostic procedure called medial branch block can be performed.