Solutions For Pain
At the Pain & Spine Institute we offer a number of different Pain Management Services to help ease the pain that our patients experience. Whether you have chronic pain from injuries, an accident, or a degenerative illness affecting your spine, we can provide solutions to relieve your discomfort.
Kinds Of Injections
We offer several different kinds of injections, including trigger point injections, joint injections (in the hip, knee, or sacro-iliac area of the pelvis, for example, and injections into the facet joints in the neck, mid-back, and lower back areas. These injections are meant to deliver medications into these areas, including trigger areas where muscles tighten and do not relax.
Epidural Injections
Epidural injections are inserted into what is known as the “epidural space” around the roots of nerves. They are given to alleviate pain in the associated area, either permanently or temporarily. Two versions of this are available, including a cervical epidural steroid injection to address neck pain, and a thoracic epidural steroid injection in the mid-back.
Other Forms of Pain Management
We are also able perform pain management of migraines through the use of botox injections, and we provide diagnostic medial branch blocks and stellate ganglion blocks. Diagnostic medial branch blocks are injected into the medial nerves around particular facet joints. These are considered “diagnostic” because if the patient experiences pain relief after the injection, this is an indication that these facet joints are the culprits of the patient’s pain. The stellate ganglion block is used to address pain that is felt in the sympathetic nerves in the arms through injections in the neck on either side of the larynx.
Pain Management Procedures
We also offer radiofrequency neurotomy procedures, which use radio wave-generated heat to address nerve pain. These radio waves interfere with the nerves’ pain signals and thus provide temporary pain management. These can be used for cervical, thoracic, and lumbar nerve pain. Another technique is discography, which is used to diagnose lumbar (lower back) pain, leg pain, or hip pain. The technique involves anesthetizing the skin around the disc and then injecting liquid into the disc itself in order to determine the source of the pain. Lastly, Supartz is a kind of therapy for joint fluid that uses hyaluronic acid, which is found naturally in the joints and acts as a lubricant. Injections of this hyaluronic acid will provide greater lubrication and reduce knee pain.