Advantage of the DIAM is that it less invasive compared to some other procedures and can be removed without too much invasiveness so other, possibly more aggressive (and probably more invasive) treatments being available on down the road. As far as facets go, mine were pain generators and were bone rubbing on bone and fused while I had the dynesys implant on my spine. In fact, they started to fuse in the first 3 months of having it implanted. (can I assume that my body will generate bone if I have a anterior fusion?) The DIAM should distract your facets so they aren't rubbing on each other all the time and open the lateral canals if there is stenosis there. The implant is sometimes combined with a decompression procedure. My facets deteriorated pretty fast once my disc height reduced. Also, my surgeon said my facets didn't look to bad on the MRI and yet they were painful. Point is, don't rely on MRI to determine if your facets are painful. The standard is diagnostic injections to test your facets. All the medical journals I've read say that the injections should be used to rule out ADR if your facets are painful. I've read anecdotal evidence of ADR helping facets by aligning things but I don't know of any double blind well designed clinical testing to support this possibility. I've seen posts of patients so there is some anecdotal evidence. However, I need science to back up claims when it comes to my health and spine. Anecdotal and case studies are not enough when it comes to my spine.
I've read most of these articles on facet joints on medspace which is a great resource.
Medscape Search
The article on bone scan with SPECT was very informative
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