Are you struggling with pain? Perhaps it’s in your knees or another joint. Many people face pain that doesn’t improvement because the nerves and joints in their body are no longer functioning the way they should. This nearly always leads to chronic suffering. However, treatment options are now more available than ever including the use of spinal injections. For many patients, these can be life changing because they can restore your overall movement and function. If you are considering spinal injections, our New York City doctors can help you.
Should You Consider Spinal Injections?
As you’ll soon learn, spinal injections provide a great deal of relief and improvement in range of motion for many people. They can be a tool to significantly improve your quality of life. But, do you need them? The only way to know for sure is to come in to see our experienced NYC doctors to discuss your condition and the potential benefits that injections can offer to you. We can help you in various ways with these injections.
For some people, they work to reduce inflammation and reduce symptoms. That means you may start to feel pain relief right away. Injections can improve inflammation enough to allow your body’s natural healing to restore function and to improve your condition as well. In addition to this, these injections can provide you with months, if not longer, benefits and restore the function you may have lost. Talk to our NYC doctors about the benefits of spinal injections for your specific condition. You’ll find it can give you the long term pain relief you need without many, if any side effects. Everyone’s needs are different, though. Let us help you find out if this treatment can work for you.
How Spinal Injections Help
A spinal injection involves injecting a local anesthetic and corticosteroid into one or more levels of the cervical or lumbar spine. A local anesthetic provides immediate, but short-term pain relief. A corticosteroid drug is a powerful anti-inflammatory; it slowly takes effect and may provide long-term pain relief.
Two-fold purpose
- Reduce nerve inflammation, calm symptoms, aid healing
- Obtain important diagnostic information*
*Pain relief may prove a particular nerve root is causing or contributing to pain and symptoms.
Two common injection therapies are lumbar epidural steroid injections and facet joint injections.
Typical injection procedure
Spinal injections are administered in a sterile setting. Intravenous medications are given to help you relax. In the procedure suite, we position you on the treatment table, clean the skin area, and inject a local anesthetic to numb your skin and spine muscles.
Fluoroscopy (real-time x-ray) is used to guide the needle into position. Contrast dye is injected to confirm needle placement. Then the anesthetic and corticosteroid is injected into the target area of the spine. Pain may temporarily increase during the injection. After the injection, a small bandage covers the injection site.
What to expect
After a spinal injection, you may experience one of the following results:
- Good pain relief
- Less pain
- Pain is relieved, returns for a short time period, and improves again.
- Days of pain relief, then pain returns
- Brief pain relief
- No pain relief
Even if your result is not favorable, that does not mean a spinal injection cannot help to ease your pain. We urge you to keep a pain journal to record your pain and symptoms. Your notes help measure your response to the spinal injection. Depending on your outcome, another spinal injection or other therapies may be recommended.
Can you benefit from a spinal injection?
Rehabilitation Medicine Center of New York routinely cares for patients who have suffered on-the-job, accident-related or episodic neck or low back pain. Our staff and their team of spine experts share goals to (1) reduce your pain, (2) improve or restore your functional abilities and (3) return you to full activity as soon as is reasonable.
