Pain Management Injections: What You Should Know

Pain Management Injections

Pain, especially long-term pain, can be miserable to live with. Whether the source is your neck or back, is sharp or dull, or radiates down your arms or legs, it leads to poor quality of life.

The pain sensation is a warning signal the body sends to the brain. When tissue injury is detected, specialized nerves convey pain signals to the brain, creating awareness in the form of discomfort. While this may be useful for survival, it becomes a problem if it continues.

If you’ve been in pain for any time, you know how frustrating this protective mechanism can be. Pain management injections may help to interrupt the cycle.

What Are Pain Management Injections?

Injection therapy involves injecting drugs into injured or damaged tissue to promote healing, reduce inflammation, and relieve pain. They can also assist in determining the exact cause of neck, back, arm, or leg pain. Injections can be essential to a comprehensive treatment strategy that includes physical therapy or an exercise regimen to improve mobility and stability.

How Do Injections Relieve Pain?

Injections can be done to administer a steroid or other pain-relieving medicine into the painful area, reducing inflammation and pain.

Injections of numbing agents can also be used to help determine the anatomic part in the spine that may be causing discomfort, such as a herniated disc or a compressed nerve so that further treatment can be prescribed.

What Conditions Can Pain Management Injections Treat?

Injections are frequently used to treat pain in the back, neck, hip, shoulder, buttocks, and upper leg caused by a variety of conditions, such as:

What Are the Types of Injections Available?

Facet Joint Injections

The spine is composed of many small bones that protect the spinal cord. Facet joints are tiny joints that run along the length of the spine. These joints provide stability to the spine and allow you to move freely.

Facet joints can become painful if you have arthritis, stress, strain, or pressure on your spine. Injections alleviate pain by delivering a numbing agent or steroid medication into the facet joint. They can relieve discomfort in the neck, middle, or lower back that radiates to the shoulders, buttocks, or upper legs.

Facet joint injections can help a person recover from an injury or spinal condition by relieving discomfort making physical therapy or rehabilitation possible. They can also assist in determining the location of an injury.

Epidural Steroid Injections (ESI)

A steroid epidural injection helps treat spinal nerves that are swollen due to excessive pressure. Pressure can occur when the space through which your nerves go down and out of your spine narrows. This constriction could be caused by bone spurs, ligament thickening, inadequate vertebral alignment, or disc herniations.

During an ESI, a needle is inserted into the epidural space, and steroid medication is injected to provide efficient pain relief to both sides of the spinal canal. ESI can help reduce inflammation and discomfort in injured, compressed, or inflamed nerves. They commonly treat lower back pain, leg discomfort, and sciatica. The pain reduction provided by epidural steroid injections can aid a person’s recovery from an injury or spinal condition.

Epidural injections can also be targeted at a particular nerve to establish whether or not it is the source of discomfort.

Regenerative Injections

Regenerative injections assist the body in self-healing. Regenerative injections can reduce pain and enhance recovery from:

  • Acute injury
  • Surgery
  • Degenerative disc disease
  • Tendon damage
  • Osteoarthritis

There are two variations:

Stem Cell Injections

Mesenchymal stem cells are utilized in stem cell injections to promote tissue growth and repair. Mesenchymal stem cells can differentiate into various types of cells to accelerate tissue regeneration and repair. Additionally, they can regulate neighboring cells to promote recovery.

These cells are harvested from your own body – either in fat tissue or bone marrow.

Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) Injections

PRP injections employ concentrated growth factors extracted from the patient’s blood to promote healing, reduce inflammation, and enhance blood flow. Your own blood is taken, separated into different components, and the prepared plasma is injected back into the affected area.

Don’t continue to live with chronic pain – schedule an appointment today to see if pain management injections are right for you!

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