How to Make the Most of Pain Injections

Chronic pain, defined as lasting three months or more, can suck the life out of you. Everything you do becomes more difficult, requires more attention, and can easily lead to exhaustion. Fortunately, there are treatments for chronic pain that may help diminish or eliminate the problem.

At Interventional Pain Center in Legacy Office Park, Norman, Oklahoma, interventional pain medicine physician Dr. James Stephens offers several different types of injections to help manage your pain. Each type of injection targets a different kind of pain problem, so what you get will depend on your diagnosis and the severity of your symptoms.

Here’s how to make the most out of these injections.

What are cortisone injections, and what are they for?

Cortisone shots deliver a dose of steroid medication into problem areas in your body. They work by helping to reduce inflammation, very often in a joint, including the joints in the spine. That makes these injections helpful in treating inflammatory conditions like arthritis, tendinitis, or bursitis.

Corticosteroids are manufactured drugs that resemble your body’s cortisol, a hormone your adrenal glands produce. They work by temporarily reducing your immune system’s activity in the area, thereby reducing inflammation and the pain that often comes with it.

How do injections help back pain?

If you’re dealing with back pain, in addition to spinal facet joint injections, injections into the back may help two major pain problems:

The first is inflammation of or damage to a nerve, usually in the neck (cervical spine) or the low back (lumbar spine). Doctors call this “radiculopathy” because although the problem originates where the nerve exits the spine, you feel a sharp pain radiating down into one or both legs or from the neck into the arm.

A common cause of radiculopathy is a bulging or herniated disc.

The second is spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the spinal canal, often because herniated disc material spills into the canal space or a bone spur juts from a vertebra into it. Such a narrowing compresses the nerves, leading to pain in the buttock or leg.

In both cases, the injection calms the inflammation and, thereby, the pain.

Doctors also use injections for other types of back pain or even to diagnose what's causing the pain.

Injections may be able to help inflamed or damaged nerves. There are several kinds of injections, including:

Nerve block injections

With a nerve block, Dr. Stephens injects the area around an inflamed or damaged nerve with an anesthetic, most commonly lidocaine. The area quickly becomes numb, giving you near-complete pain relief. The anesthetic lasts several hours.

Discography

Some doctors use nerve block injections to diagnose what's causing your back pain. They inject several areas and ask which one causes the pain to go away. That nerve may then be selected for an epidural injection, using both steroid and anesthetic medicines, or the doctor may decide to try another treatment.

Epidural injections

Epidural means “around the spinal cord.” The steroid and anesthetic are injected at the same time. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough data to determine how effective these injections are, but we know their effects last a short time and offer only modest pain relief.

As a result, an epidural isn’t something Dr. Stephens would probably select if you have chronic back pain. And if your pain started suddenly, there are other treatments he’d most likely consider first.

What are trigger point injections (TPIs)?

Trigger points are painful “knots” in your muscles sensitive to touch/pressure. They often form from repetitive micro-trauma, leading to stress on muscle fibers and causing them to remain contracted.

Doctors use TPIs to help treat myofascial pain, pain in the thin, white connective tissue wrapped around every muscle. The pain and tenderness of myofascial pain are typically due to one or more trigger points, which feel like small bumps or knots in your muscle.

TPIs commonly involve injecting a local anesthetic with a corticosteroid, botulinum toxin, or without any substance (dry needling).

A TPI may be a good choice if your pain hasn’t improved with other treatments, such as over-the-counter pain medication, heat therapy, massage therapy, myofascial release, and physical therapy.

Doctors use TPIs to reduce pain in people unable to do physical therapy or stretching exercises due to intense pain. Physical therapy can be more effective with reduced pain after the TPI.

Do you have chronic pain but aren’t finding any relief? Interventional Pain Center offers many different types of therapeutic injections to help. To learn more or to schedule a consultation with Dr. Stephens, call the office at 405-759-8407 or use our online booking tool today.