More involved studies, such as conditions affecting more than one extremity, may take more than an hour. The length of a study varies depending on the condition.

Your appointment with the physician, including the test, will take approximately 45 to 60 minutes.Plan to arrive 15 minutes before your scheduled appointment for the check-in process.After the exam, check with the doctor who sent you to the lab for the next step in your care.WHEN PREPARING FOR YOUR EMG OR NCS PLEASE REMEMBER THE FOLLOWING. The EMG doctor will discuss your test results with you or send them to your regular doctor. If you have myasthenia gravis, ask your EMG doctor if you should take any medications before the test. Do not use body lotion on the day of the test. Take a bath or shower to remove oil from your skin. Tell the EMG doctor if you are taking aspirin, blood thinners (like Coumadin®), have a pacemaker, or have hemophilia. You can also do your normal activities after the tests. You can do any of your normal activities, like eating, driving, and exercising, before the tests. The doctor then uses his medical knowledge to figure out what could be causing your problem. The doctor will look at and listen to the electrical signals that travel from the needle to the EMG machine. The doctor tests only the muscles necessary to decide what is wrong. There may be a small amount of pain when the needle is put in. A new needle is used for each patient and it is thrown away after the test. Needle EMG (Electromyography)įor this part of the test, a small, thin needle is put in several muscles to see if there are any problems. These shocks cause a quick, mild, tingling feeling. This is done by applying small electrical shocks to the nerve and recording how the nerve works. NCSs show how well the body’s electrical signals are traveling to a nerve. The EMG doctor will examine you to decide which tests to do. Some of the tests that the EMG doctor may use to diagnose your symptoms are nerve conduction studies (NCSs), needle EMG, and evoked potentials. You are being sent to the electromyography (EMG) lab because you have numbness, tingling, pain, weakness, or muscle cramping. Why am I being sent to the EMG Lab for tests? Our physicians are all neurologists with specialty training in performing EMG and Nerve Conduction Testing. A trained assistant or technologist under a doctor’s supervision can do nerve conduction studies. The American Association of Neuromuscular & Electrodiagnostic Medicine’s policy is that an appropriately trained doctor should do all needle EMG testing. The results of the tests will help your doctor decide what is wrong and how it can be treated. You can have problems in only one part of your body or throughout your body.

Your doctor has recommended an EMG test to see if your muscles and nerves are working right. Electrodiagnostic medicine is the study of diseases of nerves and muscles.

When to call doctor pain after emg test