New Thermal Annuloplasty treatment - Biacuplasty

[paindoc]

Mark,
Just be careful when evaluating these "new" thermogenic procedures. I trained at Texas Tech' s interventional program with Gabor Racz and Prithvi Raj so we were constantly being asked to evalualte and study these new technologies. By the time I had arrived, Racz and Raj had pretty much thrown IDET's under the bus and felt they really didn't work very well. It seems the dehyration of the nuclear/ annular junction that occurs with these procedures can actually increase the size of a fracture rather than seal it,and there were othe disc decompressions systems that they felt were far superior. Then along came Disctrode. The theory was great, place the catheter in the annulus itself rather than annular/nuclear junction. We spent a year doing this (only Dr. Racz was allowed for study purposes), and we could only get one pt. better....just one! And I wound up having to present and defend the case at a national meeting...not an enviable task when you don't believe in the technology. All I'm saying is that what sounds good in theory doesn't always translate to the real world, and we've been beating this thermal annuloplasty idea like a dead horse with very limited success.

[no34evr]

I know this is an old post but I still wanted to reply because I had this procedure done to my L3-4 disc last Sep 07 and it was a success! I had to wear a tortoise shell type brace during the day for 6 weeks and and soft one at night and then the soft one for a couple of weeks after that and that was it. I still had some soreness for a couple of months but it cleared up completely.

Just thought I put that out there in case anyone was interested. I did have a grade 4 annuluar tear prior to the procedure. Sure beats getting it fused!

Cathy

[Maria]

Cathy,
congrats on your success w/this procedure/surgery. Bringing the topic back to life makes me want to read about it a bit more so glad you posted your outcome!

Also thanks Paindoc for your input/insight.