Most patients can resume normal activities after a brief recovery period, though we may recommend avoiding specific movements or strenuous activity such as weightlifting for a few days. Most patients report significant pain relief within two to four weeks. You can go home later that day, but you will need someone to drive you. The Intracept procedure takes about an hour, and you will be monitored while the sedation wears off. The instruments will then be removed, and a small bandage will be applied over the entry points. The probe generates heat, which burns the nerve and disrupts pain signals before they can branch out and reach the brain. A specialized probe is then run through the channel and placed directly next to the nerve. Your physician will use real-time fluoroscopic X-ray guidance to access the painful vertebrae with a small introducer needle.Ī curved instrument is passed through the introducer needle to create a channel through the vertebral bone to the base of the basivertebral nerve.

Patients receive anesthesia and a local anesthetic to numb the skin. Fortunately, we now have this new, highly effective procedure to offer our patients. While anti-inflammatory medications, physical therapy, or cortisone injections can help some patients, conservative treatments are not always effective for vertebrogenic low-back pain. This is known as vertebrogenic low-back pain, and it was designated as an official diagnosis with an International Classification of Diseases (ICD) code in October 2021. Nerves carry the messages between your body and brain that help you feel sensations, including pain. Just like other parts of the body, the vertebral endplates are vulnerable to deterioration and nerve damage. Today we know that low-back pain can also originate inside the vertebrae – specifically from the nerves in the vertebral endplates, where the bone meets the discs. It was long thought that low-back pain was largely due to trouble in the discs, the cushions that separate each of the spine’s bones (vertebrae) from each other. How we treat back pain depends on its cause.

Nerve study on lower back