When I see discography I think that it is a discussion of the history of music records.

What we are talking about here is a procedure that is supposed to determine which spinal discs are sensitive to pressure and causing pain.

You lie on a long metal table with your lower back exposed. The radiologist inserts a long needle, called a trocar, into your back until he reaches the edge of the disc above the one that is ruptured. Then he runs a fine needle into the trocar and into disk itself.

Then he takes something that looks like a syringe attached to a digital monitor and attaches it to the fine gauge needle that is in your disk. This will apply the pressure to the disk when the doctor presses the plunger.

When he applies the pressure, you are to say if the pain is familiar or something different from what you usually feel.

Effectiveness of Discography

Dr. Eugene Carragee, director of Stanford University’s Orthopedic Spine Center has studied the usefulness of discography. He found that 40% of patients who had no back pain after surgery still had significant pain when they underwent discography. On the other hand, 40% of patients who had serious persistent pain after back surgery had no pain when they underwent the procedure.

In other studies he found that patients who were depressed and anxious were more likely to find discography painful and in fact were some would have back pain for up to a year later.

So this is a useless procedure that on the face of it should give doctors good information. This points to the fact that it isn’t the condition of the disks that is the main cause of back pain.