The statistics about back pain tell a classic good news, bad news story. For nine out of 10 people, back pain heals. But when the pain lasts longer than 12 weeks, it becomes a long-lasting debilitating condition.
Chronic back pain doesn’t improve on its own. It stays the same or worsens if you don’t find treatment that relieves your symptoms or treats the underlying condition.
When you need relief from back pain, our Centers for Pain Control and Vein Care team in Hobart, LaPorte, Munster, Valparaiso, and Merrillville, Indiana, offers numerous treatment options, including the following six injections.
Epidural steroid injections relieve back pain caused by inflamed spinal nerves. This type of injection typically includes steroids and anesthetic medicine.
Steroids are powerful anti-inflammatory drugs that produce long-lasting pain relief for many people. The anesthetic gives you fast but temporary relief.
We inject the medications into the epidural space, which is an area between the spinal cord and vertebrae. The medicine flows through the space, surrounds the nerve roots, and reduces inflammation.
The facet joints connect the spinal vertebrae, allowing you to bend and twist while limiting rotational movement and ensuring the vertebrae don’t slip out of place.
These joints are small but have the same structure as your knee joint. That means they have a synovial lining that can become inflamed and cartilage that can degenerate and lead to osteoarthritis.
When a problem in the facet joint causes your back pain, we may recommend injections containing steroids and/or an anesthetic.
A medial branch block is another type of injection targeting the facet joints. Instead of placing the injection inside the joint, we target the medial nerves outside it. These nerves carry pain messages from the joint to the brain.
Injecting a local anesthetic stops the signals going through the nerves. As a result, your brain doesn’t get the pain message and your pain improves.
You should feel the improvement within 2-6 hours. However, the effect only lasts 4-12 hours, depending on the type of anesthetic.
Because the pain relief is short-lived, we primarily use medial branch blocks to verify the nerve that's carrying pain signals. Then, we target that nerve and perform radiofrequency ablation.
Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is a different type of injection. This treatment uses a needle-like device that we insert through your skin like an injection. But once the needle reaches the nerve, we use it to release a short burst of radiofrequency energy.
Heat from the radiofrequency energy wounds the nerve and the wound then stops pain signals. Your results last until the nerve regenerates, which could take 9-12 months or longer.
The sacroiliac (SI) joints connect the sacrum (bone at the bottom of the spine) to the left and right hip bones.
The SI joints are different from other joints because they limit movement. They also provide stability and distribute pressure between your upper and lower body.
When an SI joint gets too tight or loose, sustains an injury, becomes inflamed, or develops arthritis, you experience pain in the joint and your lower back. We can reduce the pain with an SI joint injection containing steroids with or without an anesthetic.
A trigger point is a hard knot that develops when a small group of muscle fibers tightens. Trigger points cause pain and stiffness and often limit movement. Though trigger points frequently occur in the neck and shoulders, they can also affect your back.
Trigger point injections quickly ease your pain. We inject an anesthetic directly into the muscle knot, where it relaxes the muscle fibers. In some cases, we may also inject a steroid.
Call Centers for Pain Control and Vein Care today or request an appointment online to learn more about injections and other treatments to help with back pain.
