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Lower back pain. Ablation?
I have lower back pain. It is on my right side about 3 inches from the center of spine, right above the butt. It stays right there and doesn't travel down leg etc. Along with this sometimes pain is in groin. The longer I stand or walk the worse the pain is until I have to get off my feet. It then hurts for 10 min or so before letting up. Mri shows buldging disk at every level of lower back along with scoliosis, and spinal stenosis at one level. The pain clinic wants to do ablation.... they say sciatica...
Any thoughts from anyone? Has anyone had anything similar and what did ypu do?
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I've had 1️⃣ablaTion & it was helpful for a to month period. If you read-up on ablations, they are good for a short period of time as the deadened nerves grow back over time. They are useful though as my back pain tends to ebb and flow. If my back pain is on the rise, an ablation is useful. My doctor also thinks an epidural would be useful in my situation. I think I'll give it a try when my back pain starts to rise. All of these recommendations are temporary fixes but are useful to stem the increase in pain. I find physical therapy pretty useful when my back pian in at a normal level of 5 to 6. It helps strengthen you core and thusly, reducing pain when you are walking. We all live in an acute situation & try to find ways to live on a day to day basis. I've tried Oxycontin & became addicted to it. It was really hard on my cognitively & my quality of life. Today, I use a mix of Tramadol, stretching, physical therapy, and intermident pain relieves (ablation, & thinking about an epidural).
I don't have sciatica, but I've had two treatments of medial branch block, and I'm heading forward to have radio frequency ablation (RFA) done, which is pretty safe. I'm considering, if the RFA does not last very long, going to the DVR procedure which is the ablation where they actually sever the couple of nerves along the L4/L5 vertebrae, giving longer pain relief.