What is the purpose of a spinal injection?
At Pinnacle Pain and Spine, our providers offer spinal injections both to diagnose the source of your pain and to provide treatments that alleviate the pain.
Injections to diagnose the nerve or area causing your pain contain a local anesthetic. If you experience quick pain relief after the injection, then the right nerves were targeted and you can get a therapeutic injection.
What conditions may be treated with a spinal injection?
A spinal injection can improve pain caused by conditions like:
- Herniated disc
- Degenerative disc disease
- Facet joint arthritis
- Spinal stenosis
- Chronic back pain
- Complex regional pain syndrome
- Fibromyalgia
An injection that targets specific nerve roots or sympathetic nerves as they enter the spine, or that goes into the epidural space, can alleviate pain from any part of your body.
What types of therapeutic spinal injections might I receive?
At Pinnacle Pain and Spine, our providers specialize in spinal injections like:
- Epidural steroid injection
- Facet joint injection
- Nerve root blocks
- Sympathetic nerve blocks
- Stellate ganglion blocks
- Medial branch blocks
- Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections
- Bone marrow aspirate injections
- Alpha2Active™ Alpha-2-Macroglobulin therapy
The active ingredients in these injections include steroids, local anesthetics, platelets, stem cells, and proteins.
How does a spinal injection help with pain?
Steroids ease your pain by reducing nerve inflammation, while anesthetics block nerve signals carrying pain messages to the brain.
Platelets and stem cells are natural regenerative agents. Platelets accelerate healing and stem cells regenerate all the new cells needed to repair tissues. Both help to regulate inflammation and trigger many cellular activities that promote healing.
The proteins in Alpha2Active are one of today’s most advanced treatments. When these proteins are injected, they eliminate other proteins in your body that cause inflammation and joint damage.
What happens during a spinal injection?
After applying a local anesthetic, our providers use real-time imaging to view the spinal nerves and guide the needle to a precise nerve or location, such as the epidural space along the spinal cord.
The injection doesn’t take long, but you need to allow time to talk with our providers before the injection and to stay on-site for observation for a short time afterward.
Most people go back to work the next day, but you may need to avoid strenuous activities for a short time depending on the type of injection you receive.
To learn if your pain might improve with a spinal injection, call Pinnacle Pain and Spine or book an appointment online today.
