When you have back pain that radiates into your legs, you may benefit from epidural injections. At AABP Integrative Pain Care, the team of board-certified anesthesiology and pain management physicians specialize in interventional pain procedures and perform epidural injections to ease various pain conditions. To learn more about epidural injections and how they may help you, call the office in the Bensonhurst neighborhood in Brooklyn, or the office in White Plains, New York.
Epidural injections are an interventional pain management treatment for pain conditions caused by spinal nerve inflammation.
The injection contains a local anesthetic and a corticosteroid that your pain management physician injects directly into the epidural space in your spine. The epidural space is a fat-filled area between the vertebral bones and your spinal nerves.
The team at AABP Integrative Pain Care determines if you’re a candidate for epidural injections after a pain management consultation. You may be a candidate if you have neck, back, arm, or leg pain due to:
However, the team may only recommend the injection if medical treatments, such as oral medications and physical therapy, fail to provide significant relief from your pain.
Your epidural injection is an outpatient procedure. After changing into an exam gown, you lie facedown on an X-ray table. Your provider cleans the skin over the spine with an antiseptic agent, and may give you medicine to help you relax and numb the area at the site of your injection.
Then, using ultrasound-guided imaging, your provider inserts the needle into your spine until it reaches the area of spinal nerve inflammation and injects the medication.
The team sends you to the recovery area for monitoring and then sends you home. You can walk after your epidural injection, but you need to arrange to have someone drive you home and should plan on taking it easy the rest of the day.
The AABP Integrative Pain Care team requests you keep a pain diary following your epidural injection so they can assess the effectiveness of your treatment. You may feel an increase in pain during the first few days but should notice improvements over the next week or so.
If you have mild pain relief, the team may recommend one or two additional injections to get the best results. Though results vary, your epidural injection may provide pain relief for months.
The team recommends combining your epidural injections with physical therapy or a home exercise program to gain the most benefits.
To schedule a pain management consultation at AABP Integrative Pain Care, call the office nearest you or schedule an appointment online today.