Pain and Radiation

[SleepIsGood]

I was talking to a buddy of mine today about pain med. He told me he would have loved to do it, but the exposure to radiation is soo great.

Although I've always known this, I suppose I never really thought about it. It's true you wear all the lead equipment, etc. Nevertheless, the xrays from the Carms, etc are still in the room for a while. Also, it's not like you are just exposed to this stuff once a week or something. As a pain doc you would be exposed to this stuff atleast 3-4 days a week??
sooo...my question is, has there been a study or any indication showing increased cancer risk with pain docs? I tried pub med, but not to any avail.

Yes, this is a serious question

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[wonthurtabit1]

I was talking to a buddy of mine today about pain med. He told me he would have loved to do it, but the exposure to radiation is soo great.

Although I've always known this, I suppose I never really thought about it. It's true you wear all the lead equipment, etc. Nevertheless, the xrays from the Carms, etc are still in the room for a while. Also, it's not like you are just exposed to this stuff once a week or something. As a pain doc you would be exposed to this stuff atleast 3-4 days a week??
sooo...my question is, has there been a study or any indication showing increased cancer risk with pain docs? I tried pub med, but not to any avail.

Yes, this is a serious question

here is a ref for you:
haven't reviewed it myself yet.

Botwin KP, Thomas S, Gruber RD, Torres FM, Bouchlas CC, Rittenberg JJ, Rao S. Related Articles, Links
Radiation exposure of the spinal interventionalist performing fluoroscopically guided lumbar transforaminal epidural steroid injections.
Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2002 May;83(5):697-701.
PMID: 11994810 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

I also recommend going to algos research pain md website for how to decrease rad exposure.