Procedure - What To Expect FAQs
Having someone drive you for a medical procedure is never a bad idea.
- Epidurals and spine procedures: If you are going to have an injection in the neck, thoracic or lumbar spine, your arms and/or legs may be numb for several hours. This can impair your ability to walk or operate a vehicle safely. Until these areas are no longer numb or weak, you are at increased risk of falling or injury.
- Extremity Procedures: When performing injections on any part of your extremities, numbing medications and/or local nerve blocks are used to reduce the pain associated with the procedure. These can cause local numbness and weakness for several hours and can impair one’s ability to use the associated extremity. This may impair your ability to operate a vehicle and may put you at increased risk of falling or injury.
- Relaxing Pre-Medication: Pre-medication is sometimes used for patients prior to a procedure to help decrease any anxiety and/or pain associated with the procedure. These sedative medications can cause drowsiness and impair one’s cognition for many hours after taking the medication. It is important to avoid operating a vehicle for up to 8 hours after taking these medications, and longer if feelings of sedation or alteration persist.
Because there is a chance for temporary impaired sensation/strength after a procedure as noted above, we recommend having a driver after any procedure you may have in clinic. A driver is REQUIRED after any spine procedure or any procedure in which sedation is used.
If you do not have a driver in these circumstances, then your procedure will be
rescheduled.
If you choose to drive after any procedure/sedation then you understand your risk of injury to yourself and others is increased by operating a vehicle and you take full responsibility for any injury that may occur to yourself or anyone else.
We use real-time x-ray known as fluoroscopy and/or musculoskeletal ultrasound to precisely guide the needles. Your MRI images are also used to help plan that injection.
There is virtually no down time with this outpatient procedure. The entire process will take anywhere from 2-7 days depending on the doctor’s recommendation. You can walk right out of the clinic the same day any procedure is completed. For all blood-derived procedures (SCP, PL), you will only need to come in for one day for treatment.
Probably less painful than any typical shot in a doctor’s office. The procedures are done under precise image guidance and performed by physicians who are amongst the most experienced and skilled in the world. We have many ways to make sure that you can be comfortable during the procedure.
This is a short (20 to 40 minute) in office procedure where the skin and tissues are numbed under precise image guidance and a needle is used to withdraw marrow blood, which contains the stem cells. One site on each will be numbed and three to five samples are taken from each site. Because the area is extensively numbed, virtually all of our patients report that the procedure is comfortable and would do it again.
A properly performed marrow aspirate procedure should not be more than mildly uncomfortable to the vast majority of patients.
The cells are isolated in the lab using a proprietary separation technique. For the same day procedure, this isolated stem cell fraction is placed right back into the body. For more details on the stem cell procedure, click here.
Many patients ask why we need to draw blood and how much is taken. Blood is drawn from a vein in your arm and the amount drawn can vary significantly based on the type of procedure and your body weight, we also do a blood draw for the post-injection portion of our stem cell procedure protocol. More information on platelet procedures can be found here in our Complete Guide to Platelet Rich Plasma Treatments.
