It's already been stated I have to have surgery. All of a sudden I'm too young again for the surgery. Was told years back by the time I was 50 I would be in a wheelchair. Now that I'm 50 I say by the time I'm 55 I will be in a wheelchair.
Sorry, but I'm one who love's to swim/float in summer. Don't want to give that up due to having wires in my back for pain relief.

I think part of the answer is to satisfy the insurance company.They don't want to pay for the procedure if it doesn't help with the pain.I guess the reason why they do the medial branch block twice is to be sure the nerves causing the pain were correctly targeted.It is like process of elimination,if it helped a good deal then the radio-frequency can be done.

I am assuming a pain regulator Is the tense machine that is connected at all times. That was a no for me. Most pain specialist push for this but I had no relief with the tense machine so walking around with wires implanted was a no for me although he insisted.

They have me doing a follow up a week later to see if it helped.
They did state that if it doesn't the will implant a pain regulator.
To me it almost feels like I am getting a run around from the pain specialist. The surgeon has something totally different to say.

For me my first medial branch block didn't contain steroids because I have kidney disease so I'm now having a second block soon which will have both anesthetic and steroid medication? Honestly I think it's very frustrating waiting for them to inject me again ? My MRI showed so many different things that are causing my pain and I have a feeling I'm eventually going to need surgery ugh!