You go to work, go home and immediately get into bed with a heating pad. You get out of bed to eat dinner, but then you return to bed until it\u2019s time to go to sleep. When you wake up the next morning, you do it all over again.<\/p>\n
On top of that, you face excruciating pain that keeps you from doing outdoor activities, going out for an evening with friends and sometimes even standing up.<\/p>\n
It sounds like a dreadful scenario that probably won\u2019t happen. But in reality, the problem remains all too common.<\/p>\n
For 28-year-old Benjamin P, it was a new normal. After numerous back injuries in his early 20’s, Benjamin experienced chronic back pain that kept him from doing anything but struggling to sit in his chair at work or at home in front of the TV.<\/p>\n
Yet after more than five years of living in pain, Benjamin tested positive for a rhizotomy\u2014a pain-reducing procedure that burns nerve fibers in the spine to keep them from carrying pain signals to the brain. The procedure worked, and it didn\u2019t just mean living without the suffering. It meant breaking out of the prison of chronic pain for life.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\nWhat Is A Rhizotomy?<\/b><\/h2>\n
Facet joints and nerves help to hold your spine together. Back injuries can inflame the joints or nerves to the point of debilitating pain. A facet rhizotomy serves as one way to stop the nerve fibers from sending out pain signals.<\/p>\n
When you have a rhizotomy, a doctor inserts a metal conductor into your back where the nerve fibers rest. He or she deadens the nerve fibers with a current, which reduces or stops the pain.<\/p>\n
While the procedure is effective, the results don\u2019t last forever. Every patient\u2019s pain and body is different. Benjamin\u2019s had three rhizotomies so far and gets one about every year and a half. He said it takes about a month to schedule, see the doctor, undergo the procedure and recover. But for him, it\u2019s worth the repetitiveness.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt beats the alternative of walking with a cane and being extremely limited in what I can and can\u2019t do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Benjamin didn\u2019t always have to deal with back pain. He attended school, went out with friends and led a normal life.<\/p>\n
One day, that normality transformed. He was helping one of his friends move a mattress into a loft. While his friend was at the top of the loft, Benjamin was at the bottom, making sure everything was good on the back end.<\/p>\n
In a moment, his friend lost his grip, and, as the mattress fell, Benjamin instinctively tried to catch it. His back bent backward all of the way to the ground as the queen-size, memory foam mattress crashed on top of him. As Benjamin rolled out from under the mattress, he knew something was wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew immediately I had messed my back up,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t know I had messed it up so badly and [that] it would change my life and the course of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that was just the first strike.<\/p>\n
Benjamin had finished physical therapy to treat his back and moved on, working at a restaurant while attending college. After closing the restaurant one night, Benjamin was carrying a food container and slipped on water. The twisting motion he made as he tried to catch himself hurt his back even more. That\u2019s when he began lying around the house, trying not to make the pain worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cI often hear people say I wish I could sit around and do nothing,\u201d Benjamin said. \u201cYou only wish that until it\u2019s the only option you have.\u201d<\/p>\n
When his friends came into town to visit a month later, he decided to stick it out for a night to hang at the bar with them. As Benjamin and his friends were coming out of the bar at closing, a group of drunk men attacked them at random with 2×4’s.<\/p>\n
The beating turned a minor back problem into a medical catastrophe. As the boards smashed into his spine, one of the discs ripped open, spilling out fluid. The bulging disc resulted in even more pain and sparked a rough journey to find a seemingly impossible solution.<\/p>\n
After moving back home with his parents and using a cane to get around, Benjamin saw multiple specialists who wouldn\u2019t operate on him because of his young age. A lot of people believed he was faking the pain to continue to get pain medication, which was even more discouraging.<\/p>\n
After reading about a local doctor who was conducting a study on young adults with lower back injuries, Benjamin went to see him.<\/p>\n
He explained his story, and the doctor agreed he was a perfect candidate. The doctor ended up replacing Benjamin\u2019s bulging disc. He was told he would get better, but after waiting for three and half years, he stopped physical therapy, an activity that actually made his pain worse.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, his doctor had a revelation. He suggested Benjamin may be suffering from facet disease and should get tested for a rhizotomy. When the doctor inserted lidocaine into the problem-causing nerve as a test, the results were positive.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the greatest change in my life I had experienced since messing my back up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The rhizotomy worked.<\/p>\n
Benjamin said he considers the procedure to be pretty simple. You go in an hour early to fill out the paperwork, take medication to calm down, undergo the procedure and rest for 45 minutes to an hour afterward. Other than your participation, Benjamin said, all you need is a driver to get home.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s usually a two-part process to zap both sides of your spine. For Benjamin, the doctor will work on the right-side nerves one week. The next week, he\u2019ll work on the left side. The nerves on the right, or what Benjamin calls his \u201cgood side,\u201d takes about a week to recover from. The recovery for the left side is about a week and a half.<\/p>\n
While the process may be a bit drawn out and repetitive, Benjamin doesn\u2019t consider it a sacrifice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll probably never climb again,\u201d Benjamin said. \u201cI\u2019ll certainly never surf again because I don\u2019t have balance anymore. But I can wake up every day, go to work, get off work and not be in agonizing pain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sometimes patients will hesitate to test for a rhizotomy because of worries about finances or the procedure\u2019s failure to work. At one point, Benjamin said he didn\u2019t even have health insurance. But the freedom the rhizotomy has given him makes it worth to pay out of pocket if you have to.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere shouldn\u2019t be anything that stands in the way of people getting this test done,\u201d Benjamin said. \u201cEven if it\u2019s just the test portion.\u201d<\/p>\n