Steroid injections can be recommended when you are enduring chronic pain. The treatment can help you find pain relief enough to push you through your activities and help you seek physical therapy. The Lumbar Epidural Steroid Injection specialists also offer treatment to improve mobility in the affected areas of your body. Your provider might try medications and other conservative measures and get steroid injections to postpone or skip surgery. You could be among the many people seeking to understand the treatment, and this article has covered you. Here is what you might need to know about epidural steroid injections.
How Does the Injection Work?
Your provider can recommend a steroid injection to inject anesthetic, steroids, or a mixture of the two. The main aim of the injection is to minimize your immune system activity to reduce the production of inflammatory cells in your body. The injection can also minimize localized inflammation caused by chemical or mechanical irritation to your degenerative disc, spinal cord, or surrounding tissue.
What Can Steroid Injections Treat?
Epidural steroid injections are employed mainly to overcome pain despite conventional medical care. Such pain could stem from disc herniation, foraminal stenosis, spinal stenosis, or other spinal issues that can cause nerve root irritation. Your provider can deliver the injection through your buttocks, neck, and lower or mid-back. Pain from these regions or which radiates through the regions to the legs can be managed through the injection. Although less frequent, pain radiating to your thorax or chest can also be managed using epidural steroid injections.
For those grappling with persistent pain and exploring alternative treatments, epidural steroid injections can offer a ray of hope. These injections, administered by trained healthcare professionals, involve the strategic delivery of anesthetic and steroids to alleviate chronic discomfort stemming from various spinal issues. Conditions like disc herniation, spinal stenosis, and foraminal stenosis can be addressed through carefully targeted injections. However, it’s crucial to be well-informed about the procedure and its potential benefits. If you are considering this treatment option, it’s advisable to consult specialists at the University Pain Medicine Center for personalized guidance. They can provide insights into the effectiveness of epidural steroid injections and discuss complementary approaches that may enhance their impact. To delve deeper into this topic and discover how these injections could potentially transform your journey to pain relief, find out more .
How is it Performed?
Trained and qualified health professionals should do epidural steroid injections. Different approaches can be used depending on the targeted areas and the specific parts of your spine being treated. It can be delivered as a transforaminal injection which involves inserting the needle into the epidural. The injection is done on the side where your nerve root exits the spinal canal. The injection can also be delivered as an interlaminar injection, where your provider injects the needle into the epidural through the adjacent vertebral laminae space. Also, the injection can be done as a caudal injection, where your doctor inserts the needle into the sacral area.
How Successful is Epidural Injection?
Epidural injections have been used for a long time and have proven effective in temporarily managing chronic pain. Most patients have reported significant pain relief and functional improvements from epidural injections in the cervical and lumbar spines. However, studies show that epidural steroid injections’ effectiveness can be improved through additional alternatives like physical therapy, massage, and acupuncture.
What are the Risks Involved?
When qualified and well-trained healthcare practitioners perform epidural injections safely and tolerable. Therefore, it is critical to find the right provider first. However, it cannot go without mentioning that some mild side effects are common. You might experience dizziness, nausea, headaches, insomnia, and flushing in the face. Fortunately, the effects are mild and should fade away in no time, and you can enjoy pain relief. Bleeding, nerve damage, infection, spinal cord damage, and dural puncture are some of the serious risks involved but are rare.
Contact the University Pain Medicine Center specialists if you think you can benefit from epidural steroid injections. Make a call today to request a consultation appointment or schedule the appointment online. That pain will disrupt your life no more.
