CT Guided Costovertebral Nerve Ablations

[dshobbies]

Stupid suggestion, maybe you've already thought of it or are already incorporating -

I enjoy painting which requires sitting for long hours. After the point of no return, my thoracic muscles begin to ache beyond reason with pain enough to take my breath away. This is easily remedied by my recliner and in very short order but my day of painting is over.

Now, when I want to paint, I simply wear a very good back brace, something I'm sure most of us already have, and voila - no pain. I can paint most of the day.

I'm not suggesting our problems are similar - I'm simply suggesting you try a back brace to postpone your own point of pain. But then again, maybe you're already doing that!

And btw, if you're dragon program is out of date, you can buy last years version rather inexpensively on ebay.

[mmglobal]

Dale, great suggestion! I only have lumbar braces, but I can certainly give one a try and see if the brace keeping my trunk in a more neutral position will help. I know you are suggesting only specific uses of the brace. For other readers, constant use of such a brace can decondition your core muscles, making the problem worse instead of better.

Maria, your point is well taken. I do need to improve my work habits... specifically not getting ensconced in what I'm doing and taking more frequent breaks.

I'm sorry about the "are you on drugs" crack. Everyone who knows me, realizes that this was said with a laugh and was only intended to make the readers smile. Someone who doesn't know me may think that that is how I communicate. That is not thet case.

Regarding Dragon: I have windows7 on my laptop. It comes with the Dragon speech to text engine incorporated in the operating system release.... very smooth implementation. It is a wonderful tool and if I was worse, I'd use it more. Like most propeller-heads, I type really fast. It is soooo very slow. My laptop is 6 years old and is maxed out at 2GB of RAM, so it's relatively underpowered for the demands I put on it. When I win the lottery, I'll upgrade. But... like your brace suggestion.... I need to get out the headset (6 yrs ago, many laptops still didn't have an onboard mic) and see if I can get better at using the speech to text system. Thanks!

All the best,

Mark

[Maria]

Mark,
I know the "are you on drugs?" question was in jest/lighthearted so no offense taken by me and probably most that post here know your style of communication as well.

Dragon speaking naturally is what I was thinking about in my earlier post and I have a very outdated version of it that was incredibly tedious. Would love something that involved little to no typing as I either sit and give myself a backache typing or crouch and give myself a neck ache typing or sort of semi recline and use the laptop and give myself multiple probs all at once.

However since I don't work I'm only on the computer for fun/relaxation. Sure can get carried away with that too at times!

While I was in Fla. packing boxes at the end (fairly light so I could lift, move and weigh them for a Fedex account yet totaling around 500 lbs all inclusive) then pushing this monster big old fashioned TV on the floor not (you know wiggle this side, wiggle that side and get it to move since I could never lift) I managed to exacerbate back, neck and create some thoracic level pain I've only occasionally experienced. I was told long ago this area would be problematic someday however not so yet (except very occasionally).

Trying to lie down on my back and sleep is when I felt the discomfort/ pain most significantly like it was a dull dagger sticking up thru the underside of my thoracic area about T6 (?) between the spine and the mid to lower part of my shoulder blade. That sucked!!!! Lasted several days. Was holding my breath that I'm not going to start having pain in this part of my spine as well. Hopefully was a ligamental, tendonous, muscular type of pain because it went away.

When I type like now sitting however I start to feel this tightening in that area again and spreads up around my shoulder and into my neck. Guess it's ligamental/muscle related. Not something I want to '"encourage" so on that note ... I'm outta here for walk!

Have thought of a thoracic brace myself to sort of pull my shoulders back instead of hunching them forward (round shoulders). At least to see if that helps with upper back/neck stuff.

[Shebo]

Mark, our pain sounds so similar. The pain level (thoracic) that you describe and what makes it increase is the same.

On most days, I experience pain levels of 7 or 8, but I also spend more time at 2 than at 7 and above. If I can not do anything, I'll avoid high pain levels but it's impossible for me to live like that. If I try to push through, I'll get to a 9 pretty quickly.

I recently gave the exact above story to my pain management dr. when she said that I needed to push through my pain during the day and to add exercise. I explained to her that when I push through the pain then I can't control it.

Against her advice, I have changed the way that I use my day. I do tasks in very short amounts of time. It seems to have helped. It is very frustrating, as you know. You get going and want to keep going. I now know that it will send me into uncontrolable pain.

I just had a myelogram done and we have been talking about doing an ablation. I read all of your posts here and I couldn't find the answer. Can you tell me what pain relief (if any) are you having now from your ablation? Is it the same as above? Would you do it again?

Thanks.

[mmglobal]

Shebo, the relief I got from the ablation was minor. I have slightly less pain, so I function slightly higher with less meds. Unfortunately, the problem that easily sends me to a 9 was not addressed by the ablations. We identified pain generators and dealt with them, but they were NOT the true culprits.

I'm sure you saw my next thread about getting a discogram done at the seemingly bad level... it was negative. We are still scratching our heads.

Good luck... keep us posted,

Mark

[Shebo]

Thank you for the reply. I hope I wasn't too nosy with my questions. How disappointing to go through all of that and still no answers. I don't know how you are able to do all that you do.

At your suggestion, I am sending my new test results to Dr. Jho in Pittsburgh. However, I can't find anyone who has any experiences with him. Do you know of any?

This is a very frustrating process.

I wish you the best.

[mmglobal]

Through the years I've met many patients of Dr. Jho. Some very successful, some very unhappy. What he does is well outside the box and that makes him an easy target for lawsuits. The fact that he has to defend himself a lot does not give me concern because I've seen other pioneers who face the same issues.

Unfortunately, his office is quite difficult to deal with. I would recommend pushing through the difficulties to find out what he has to say. I look past the anecdotal evidence as it has very limited value.