Good morning all! Well, I have yet another question. I've recently been posting asking about peoples' experiences with PM because I had an ESI that wasn't successful and I was wondering what else PM can do. The treatment I'm receiving is for a herniated L4/L5 disk and I'm only 20 years old. Well, I got the call today saying that since I didn't have 50% or relief they aren't doing another injection. What they ARE going to do is something called MBB (Medial Branch Block). What is that?? I have never heard about that. The nurse said that it's really more of a diagnostic procedures, is this correct? Has anyone heard of this???? The nurse did say that if it is successful, then they can do a more drastic procedure in which they "burn" the nerves...I don't know about this. Is this experimental still? Has anyone out here had this before??? What was your experience with that??? Any help please!

I have never heard of that before but I will look it up. I'm going in tuesday for my 2nd epidural injection. the 1st made me worse. hoping the next one is more help. Good luck and if I find out about the MBB i'll post back.

Thank you Terri43. I certainly appreciate this.

I looked it up on the spineuniverse site and they have a page about it. To much to type but you go there and read you will get the info you need and I got alot out of it also. good luck

Thank you very much Terri43!

The procedure is called radio frequency ablation and I had it done about a month ago. It worked wonderfully well for me; 80% of my pain is gone! I was unable to walk more than a few yards, and am now able to walk 2 miles without pain. If it works, it is wondrous and no, it is not experimental.
My dr. did the same thing...the "diagnostic" block first and then the nerve burning...radio freq. ablation. Type it into your browser and you should be able to find all kinds of information.

Good luck.

Carol

Carol, what kind of pain were you having? Was it disc related? What other types of treatment did you have before the MBB?

Carol...I think radio frequency ablation is something that they use for tumors, unless my eyes deceive me. Is that correct? Is That what you had or was it a medial branch block?