Pain Unmasking is a situation where there were two or more locations that were causing pain, but only the most significant one was felt by the patient.  When the worst pain is removed with the operation, the second site then takes a prominent level of feeling. [Imagine a teacher in a classroom seeing two students fight. Once she gets that situation under control, she then notices that another two students are throwing paper airplanes.]

The “new” area of pain can be investigated by your surgeon in the same way that the first one was.  A physical examination and possibly a nerve block can be used to identify the remaining nerve causing the problem and an additional procedure to address this separate nerve injury can be performed to treat it.