Dayna Nevar, IDET Procedure Patient Success Story

In 2002, Dayna Nevar, 22, of Chesterfield, Missouri, was involved in a car accident that left her in extreme pain.

Dayna, under the care of an Osteopathic surgeon, attempted traction which became too uncomfortable to continue and then tried a regimen of steroidal injections. Despite her love of basketball, she opted to take two months off to heal but the pain did not go away. Dayna was unable to sit for more than 30 minutes at a time, so she also had to forgo regular fun activities, like going to the movies with her friends. After the other treatment options failed, Dayna worked with her doctor to evaluate her options and to determine the best next course of treatment.

Dayna worked with her doctor to determine the best next step. Spinal fusion was ruled out because of her young age. Dayna was referred to Dr. Nagy Mekhail in the Department of Pain Management at The Cleveland Clinic Foundation
Her best option was Intradiscal ELECTROTHERMAL Therapy™ (IDET), a minimally invasive outpatient procedure for patients suffering from chronic disc-related lower back pain that delivers controlled levels of thermal heat to the affected disc. An estimated 7,000 to 10,000 IDET procedures are performed annually in the U.S. by pain management specialists, interventional radiologists and spine surgeons.

For Dayna, the IDET procedure took approximately an hour to complete, and she was given a local anesthetic and mild sedation to help to reduce discomfort. Using X-ray images as a guide, Dr. Mekhail inserted a hollow needle into each of the lumbar discs that were causing the pain. A SPINECATH catheter (or electrothermal heating wire) was then passed through the needle and positioned along the annulus (the inner wall of the disc), and the catheter was slowly heated to 90 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes. The heat contracted and thickened the collagen fibers along the disc wall, potentially closing the cracks and tears and cauterizing the nerve endings that caused the pain.

“With IDET and of lot of rehab work as well as a spinal care regimen, I am able to live a relatively pain free life.”

Today, Dayna is studying Chiropractic medicine and is able to enjoy activities like Intramural volleyball. She takes care to listen to her body and continues to rehab her back. The world is now a different place for Dayna without the chronic and constant lower back pain she used to tolerate. “It takes a lot of work and the IDET procedure was an integral part of the solution for me to get my life back.