Spinal injections are used to diagnose and relieve pain and inflammation in your back, legs, neck, and arms. These injections are part of a comprehensive treatment that may feature pain and anti-inflammation medication, physical therapy, and other procedures. Your spine doctor can use injections that include steroids and numbing medicine to relieve pain and inflammation. Here’s how spinal injections are used to treat pain and injuries:
Diagnosing the Source of Your Pain
Diagnostic epidural spinal injections involve injecting specific isolated nerves to determine if the nerve is the primary source of your pain. Your spine doctor may only inject an anesthetic and monitor your response. If your pain decreases, it means the nerve is the source of your pain symptoms. Another source of pain may exist if the initial injection results in little or no pain relief. This approach is also known as selective nerve root block.
Doctors may use various injections such as epidural steroid injections, medial branch nerve blocks, facet joint injections, and radiofrequency ablation. Other common injections include trigger point injections, platelet-rich plasma therapy, sacroiliac joint injections, sympathetic nerve blocks, and regenerative therapy injections. These injections have diagnostic and therapeutic applications.
Relieving Your Pain and Inflammation
Spinal injections containing steroids and platelet-rich plasma are used to relieve pain and inflammation in injured tissues and joints. Back and neck pain may stem from various conditions, such as a herniated disk, degenerative disk disease, spinal stenosis, osteoarthritis, or neurogenic claudication. Doctors usually inject the anesthetic anti-inflammatory steroid near the affected nerve and tissues. Caudal epidural injections are used for widespread pain caused by irritated nerves and feature medication and platelet-rich stem cells.
The injection relieves neck, shoulder, and arm pain and inflammation caused by pinched nerves in the cervical spine. Interlaminar epidural injections relieve pain caused by herniated discs and spinal stenosis. Transforaminal epidural injections target back and leg pain caused by specific irritated or inflamed nerve roots. Trigger point injections relieve chronic muscle pain. Sacroiliac joint injections target pain and inflammation caused by arthritis. These spinal injections work by reducing inflammation and blocking the nerve pathway that sends pain signals to the brain.
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Treating the Source of Your Pain
Spinal injections can treat pain, numbness, muscle weakness, and tingling caused by damaged, injured, or irritated nerves. These injections are usually part of other treatments used to address localized pain, neurogenic claudication, stenosis, and other conditions. Some spinal injections treat nerve injuries and may stop pain completely. Platelet-rich plasma therapy for back and joint pain can speed up the healing of injured joints. When pain stems from specific isolated nerves that are unrepairable, radiofrequency ablation is often the chosen course of treatment. This procedure uses heat to disable severely injured nerve tissues and eliminate the pain signals to the brain.
Doctors also use regenerative spinal injections featuring growth factors and stem cells harvested from your blood. Growth factors trigger and accelerate natural healing, helping to reduce pain and inflammation. Regenerative injections often feature platelet-rich plasma but bone marrow concentrate therapy, using stem cells from your bones, can be an alternate option. These injections offer temporary pain relief and repair the damage to nerve cells.
Finding a Licensed Spine Doctor Today
Pain in the neck, arms, back, and legs requires professional diagnosis and treatment, especially if it stems from nerve and spine conditions. Working with an experienced doctor helps you to properly diagnose and treat the source of pain. Contact a spine doctor today to find out more about spinal injections for pain and injuries.
