It was a very special friend of mine in the USA that found Dr. Menno Sluijter for me. Dr. Sluijter is world famous for his practice and research on pain
treatment with Radiofrequency-denerving (RF) of nerves. He is from the Netherlands, but is now working at a Swiss clinic. When I asked around, I found out he
had been the teacher to my own pain doctor in Oslo and the few others in Norway practicing RF. I started corresponding with Dr. Sluijter and he invited me to
visit him a special week in February. My doctor recommended me to go and see him.
The Swiss clinic impressed us deeply. Top modern, very organized and extremely nice nurses and doctors. And of course, I never had to lie and wait for the doctor in the X-ray room. They called the doctor when everything was ready and he came right away. I just loved to be there! And I usually hate hospitals..
Knut and I stayed in a room outside the clinic. Monday morning we had an appointment with dr. Sluijter at 10 AM. His secretary called us at 8.30 and informed us we would be picked up by a male nurse in half an hour to come down and register etc. The male nurse spoke English and was very cute. We were joking a lot as the days went by..I am sorry he was not around when I said good bye!
The first day in the corridor, everybody gathered around me and wanted to say hello. Some in English, others in German. So nice! Dr. Sluijter was one of them. He is an outstanding person and an excellent doctor in his field. I was so lucky to meet him and talk to him. While he examined me, he had two doctors from Zurich watching while he explained. He let me talk and then he talked himself or asked questions. He was very well informed about my personal medical history of 18 pages!!! His memory is very impressing.
He wanted to start with my lower back problems. Since it was there my most dramatical pain started 16 years ago. After examining me, he explained to the other doctors that my upper back was not a matter of facet joints nerves, but nerve roots. Then he gave me some blockades in my lower back. My sciatic pain, which had been horrible the last weeks, disappeared. But still, I had pain in my lower back. But Dr. Sluijter was like a hunter. He didn't stop until he found the right nerves and got rid of the pain. The first two days he denerved some facet joints in my lower back and a couple of nerve roots. I still had a bit of pain, but he finally got rid of that by denerving my tail bone the last day...hah. Later he moved upwards, determined to treat my whole back all the way up to my neck! I was rather impressed.
Most of the denerving procedure was not painful at all. A couple of times I experienced pain, because it was difficult to spot the nerve on the x-ray. The denerving in itself was only felt like a pulsing feeling, similar to using TENS. But I learned, never drink coffee before you are going to denerve in your low back! No more details here..LOL.
It is important to notice that dr. Sluijter use the latest method in denerving: the pulsed denerving. He told me the heat was felt as much more painful for days after, than the pulsed treatment. The difference between pulsed and heat: With heat they warm the needles a lot and is kind of burning the nerves. With pulsed they only use the radiofrequency pulsing.
Anyway, Sluijter had never seen such a strange case like me. And he had never denerved so many nerves at such a short time before on one person. He did this because he wanted to do anything to help me. I felt that was genuine. He was not too optimistic regarding my upper back problems. But we will have to wait and see for 4-6 weeks. If I am not better by then, I am going to remove my spiral..funny, hey? Yes, but he has a theory going there.....My spiral might be some of the root to part of they mystery..Allthough I have a hard time to believe that. But you can be sure I will get rid of it later anyway.
In the middle of the week the leader of the pain clinic wanted to meet me. His name is Dr Wolfgang Schleinzer, M.D, and is a rather well known doctor himself. He was very nice and spoke to me and dr. Sluijter several times. He also invited my Norwegian doctor to come and stay for a week and follow dr. Sluijter. I also spoke to other doctors from Switzerland and they told me about dr. Sluijter's new book, which I now have ordered. I also ordered one to my friend in the US that helped me find him..
Anyway I have an important message for you: Dr. Sluijter told me they have VERY good results with denerving nerves in neck after failed surgeries and in neck in general also for headaches. I got the same impression for low back pain, like scatiace pain etc. So there IS hope for many of you! Don't be discouraged if this is not working for me. You could be a totally different case. And we are talking about getting rid of the pain, for at least some months at the time, maybe for 1 year for some.
Some practical questions: yes, it was expensive and yes, I had to pay myself. But that might be different if you have an insurance. The price depends of how much you are doing. And this treatment is very expencive in Norway too.
I have started a post in our link forum with links to pain clinics around the world that use the pulsed RF method. For more information about what RF is, we have tons of links in our link forum. But also you can read here:
www.cotop.com/
Thanks to some info material they gave me, I now have the German names for this treatment. That mean I have now been able to find the German speaking websites about this. And that is VERY interesting! As far as I have noticed, Switzerland, The Netherlands and Germany might be up to date on this treatment. I don't know about the US, but I am looking. I have also been in contact with Moira our friend in Australia. This method was new to her.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you a little sunshine story: A wonderful ergotherapeut on the clinic managed to find me the last pair of adjustable prismeglasses they had and sold them to me!!!
Mosken
Me on the Swiss clinic:
The Swiss clinic impressed us deeply. Top modern, very organized and extremely nice nurses and doctors. And of course, I never had to lie and wait for the doctor in the X-ray room. They called the doctor when everything was ready and he came right away. I just loved to be there! And I usually hate hospitals..
Knut and I stayed in a room outside the clinic. Monday morning we had an appointment with dr. Sluijter at 10 AM. His secretary called us at 8.30 and informed us we would be picked up by a male nurse in half an hour to come down and register etc. The male nurse spoke English and was very cute. We were joking a lot as the days went by..I am sorry he was not around when I said good bye!
The first day in the corridor, everybody gathered around me and wanted to say hello. Some in English, others in German. So nice! Dr. Sluijter was one of them. He is an outstanding person and an excellent doctor in his field. I was so lucky to meet him and talk to him. While he examined me, he had two doctors from Zurich watching while he explained. He let me talk and then he talked himself or asked questions. He was very well informed about my personal medical history of 18 pages!!! His memory is very impressing.
He wanted to start with my lower back problems. Since it was there my most dramatical pain started 16 years ago. After examining me, he explained to the other doctors that my upper back was not a matter of facet joints nerves, but nerve roots. Then he gave me some blockades in my lower back. My sciatic pain, which had been horrible the last weeks, disappeared. But still, I had pain in my lower back. But Dr. Sluijter was like a hunter. He didn't stop until he found the right nerves and got rid of the pain. The first two days he denerved some facet joints in my lower back and a couple of nerve roots. I still had a bit of pain, but he finally got rid of that by denerving my tail bone the last day...hah. Later he moved upwards, determined to treat my whole back all the way up to my neck! I was rather impressed.
Most of the denerving procedure was not painful at all. A couple of times I experienced pain, because it was difficult to spot the nerve on the x-ray. The denerving in itself was only felt like a pulsing feeling, similar to using TENS. But I learned, never drink coffee before you are going to denerve in your low back! No more details here..LOL.
It is important to notice that dr. Sluijter use the latest method in denerving: the pulsed denerving. He told me the heat was felt as much more painful for days after, than the pulsed treatment. The difference between pulsed and heat: With heat they warm the needles a lot and is kind of burning the nerves. With pulsed they only use the radiofrequency pulsing.
Anyway, Sluijter had never seen such a strange case like me. And he had never denerved so many nerves at such a short time before on one person. He did this because he wanted to do anything to help me. I felt that was genuine. He was not too optimistic regarding my upper back problems. But we will have to wait and see for 4-6 weeks. If I am not better by then, I am going to remove my spiral..funny, hey? Yes, but he has a theory going there.....My spiral might be some of the root to part of they mystery..Allthough I have a hard time to believe that. But you can be sure I will get rid of it later anyway.
In the middle of the week the leader of the pain clinic wanted to meet me. His name is Dr Wolfgang Schleinzer, M.D, and is a rather well known doctor himself. He was very nice and spoke to me and dr. Sluijter several times. He also invited my Norwegian doctor to come and stay for a week and follow dr. Sluijter. I also spoke to other doctors from Switzerland and they told me about dr. Sluijter's new book, which I now have ordered. I also ordered one to my friend in the US that helped me find him..
Anyway I have an important message for you: Dr. Sluijter told me they have VERY good results with denerving nerves in neck after failed surgeries and in neck in general also for headaches. I got the same impression for low back pain, like scatiace pain etc. So there IS hope for many of you! Don't be discouraged if this is not working for me. You could be a totally different case. And we are talking about getting rid of the pain, for at least some months at the time, maybe for 1 year for some.
Some practical questions: yes, it was expensive and yes, I had to pay myself. But that might be different if you have an insurance. The price depends of how much you are doing. And this treatment is very expencive in Norway too.
I have started a post in our link forum with links to pain clinics around the world that use the pulsed RF method. For more information about what RF is, we have tons of links in our link forum. But also you can read here:
www.cotop.com/
Thanks to some info material they gave me, I now have the German names for this treatment. That mean I have now been able to find the German speaking websites about this. And that is VERY interesting! As far as I have noticed, Switzerland, The Netherlands and Germany might be up to date on this treatment. I don't know about the US, but I am looking. I have also been in contact with Moira our friend in Australia. This method was new to her.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you a little sunshine story: A wonderful ergotherapeut on the clinic managed to find me the last pair of adjustable prismeglasses they had and sold them to me!!!
Mosken
Me on the Swiss clinic:
USA 
California US
And of
course it helps if the rest of the staff is nice and well
and treats you like a real person with dignity and who
deserves respect! I am really happy this worked out like
this. Even if he cannot help you at least he was willing
to give it his utmost!