Title: Treatment of Chronic Muscle Spasm and Pain with the CMECD® Procedure
Biography: Dr. Roger H. Coletti, developer of an injection technique for relief of chronic pain caused by chronic muscle spasm, gave three presentations on his findings at this year’s annual meeting of the American Association of Neuromuscular and Electrodiagnostic Medicine, held Sept. 13-16 in Phoenix, Ariz.
These presentations covered evidence of sustained relief of long-standing pain, safety of the medication Coletti has pioneered, and a challenge to the established interpretation of electromyogram findings when chronic muscle spasm is present. Abstracts of the presentations have already been published in the September issue of the peer-reviewed journal Muscle & Nerve. Coletti is now a full-time resident in Lewes, having retired from a long career in interventional cardiology, and he is beginning to train other physicians in the injection technique. He has also begun a collaboration with the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine to conduct further clinical trials.
The important implications of his presentation are that physicians able to use EMG will be able to identify when pain is most likely being caused by chronic muscle spasm. The prior textbook interpretations of these EMG findings cited only nerve damage as the cause. With that knowledge, not only Coletti’s CMECD technique but other treatments directed at chronic muscle spasm can be made available to patients having chronic muscle spasm as the likely cause of their chronic pain. These treatments could include acupuncture, electrical stimulation, massage or dry needling, for example.
He also presented a case report of a patient whose protruded low back disc regressed following the CMECD procedure. This result was verified by MRI scans before and after the procedure, and suggests a possible use of the procedure in place of surgery.