Thirty million people in the U.S. suffer from chronic low back pain -- it’s pain that continues for more than six months. For many, the pain lasts years.
When you’ve tried medication, steroid injections, and chiropractors, and nothing relieves your pain, often you’re left suffering and out of options. Now, there’s a new procedure that burns away back pain.
Andrea Beagle can push, pull, and twirl her grandkids Alice, Waylon, and Wesley now — but that wasn’t always the case.
“At my worst, I was combat crawling through my house without the use of my legs for two days,” she recalls.
Andrea tried it all, but nothing helped until she found Dr. Kevin “Buzz” Barrette, an interventional pain specialist at Scripps Clinic Medical Group in San Diego.
Beagle was suffering from vertebrogenic back pain. A new procedure called basivertebral nerve ablation, or BVN, shuts off the pain signal from the spine to the brain.
“This is, really, one of the first great breakthroughs we’ve had from a back pain standpoint,” Barrette said.
An instrument is inserted into the vertebrae through a small incision in the back.
“This ablation actually burns the little nerve that supplies sensation to that specific area,” Barrette explained.
The procedure doesn’t structurally fix the problem, but it does help with the pain.
“This procedure changed everything for me,” Beagle said with relief.
Patients typically have a minimal recovery process with BVN ablation and can return to their normal activities almost immediately. Medicare covers the procedure, as well as most insurers.