26 Jun Selective Nerve Root Blocks for Spinal Pain
Back pain is one of the most debilitating forms of pain. It is difficult to understand back pain until you have personally experienced it. Many people who experience severe back pain not only miss work, but they literally cannot get out of bed. They begin to miss out on their social lives, and the pain affects their interpersonal relationships. This can leave patients feeling depressed and hopeless.
In addition, many treatments for back pain are band-aids rather than real solutions. They cause patients to build up a tolerance to medication, or expose patients to the significant risks associated with spinal surgery. However, there are alternative treatments that exist that can help patients suffering from spinal pain.
One of these alternative treatments is a selective nerve root block. Nerve roots are attached to the spinal cord and carry signals throughout the body from the skin and muscles. When one of these nerve roots becomes irritated or compressed, patients begin to experience weakness, numbness, and tingling throughout an extremity. This is a kind of pain that is very difficult to get rid of with medication alone. Surgery is also not guaranteed to help and poses a significant amount of risks.
Fortunately, nerve root blocks can help patients who are experiencing these painful symptoms. The most common candidates for nerve root blocks include those suffering from a herniated disc, sciatica, or some kind of irritation in the nerve root. The procedure is quick and takes less than half an hour to complete. While patients may experience a small amount of numbness or weakness immediately following the procedure.
However, they are able to be discharged as soon as they can walk on their own which should only take 1-2 hours. Heavy activity should not be completed on the day of the procedure as the numbing medication can affect your balance and normal ability to walk. However, most patients can resume normal activities in a week.
Many patients who undergo a nerve root block experience a significant decline in the amount of pain they feel on a day to day basis. This kind of procedure is particularly useful for patients who have a herniated disc and have not found relief from other forms of treatment. Selective nerve root blocks allow patients at a minimum to push off their spinal surgery for a while. And, for some patients, surgery is pushed off indefinitely.
Selective nerve root blocks are a great alternative for spinal surgery for patients who are experiencing extreme spinal pain. Back pain can be severely debilitating and adversely affect a person’s quality of life. Many pain management specialists offer nerve root blocks for patients who are experiencing chronic back pain and have seen very positive results in their patients.
If you or someone you love has tried other methods of pain relief without success, make an appointment to discuss selective nerve root blocks with a pain management specialist as soon as possible. The sooner you undergo treatment, the better your result will be.