Four Signs of Compression Fractures in Your Spine
Between 1 and 1.5 million Americans experience spinal compression fractures each year in the United States. To help you recognize a compression fracture, here are some subtle and not-so-subtle signs.
What Are Epidural Injections and How Can They Help You?
Since your spine acts as the primary conduit for your nervous system, when you develop a problem in your back or neck, the symptoms can either stay local or radiate out to your upper and lower limbs, further exacerbating your discomfort.
Whether you’re struggling with chronic pain or you’re experiencing an acute issue, an epidural injection may be able to provide you with much-needed relief.
At Comprehensive Pain Management, our mission is to provide our patients with effective solutions that offer both immediate and sustained relief. As part of this effort, Drs. Do Chan and Boris Shwartzman offer a wide range of procedures and interventions, including epidural injections.
In the following, we take a look at how epidural injections work to relieve pain and whether they might be a good treatment option for you.
Epidural injection basics
Since your spine provides passage for your nervous system through your spinal cord, there are scores of highly sensitive nerve roots that branch out from your vertebrae. When these nerve roots are irritated, it can lead to both localized pain, as well as pain and symptoms that radiate outward.
As examples, a herniated cervical disc can lead to symptoms in your arms and hands and stenosis in your lumbar spine can cause symptoms in your lower back and legs.
To block these symptoms, we target the problem as close to the source as possible — the epidural space — which is the outermost portion of your spinal cord. To quiet your compromised nerves, we inject a local anesthetic into this space, which we typically combine with a steroid to combat inflammation.
Types of epidural injections
Depending upon the location and degree of nerve involvement, we turn to one of three epidural injection options:
Interlaminar epidural injection
We access your epidural space between your laminae, which are the bones that form the “roof” over your spinal canal.
Transforaminal epidural injection
With this approach, our goal is to target the area where your nerve roots exit your spinal canal, which is called your foramen.
Caudal epidural injection
We direct the injection into the lowest point of your epidural space and use gravity for more widespread pain relief.
Is an epidural injection right for you?
While this question can only really be answered after we’ve performed a full evaluation of your unique problem, the following are the most common conditions in which we use epidural injections:
- Herniated discs
- Sciatica
- Spinal stenosis
- Degenerative disc disease
- Annular tears
The best way to find out whether an epidural injection can bring you the relief you’ve been looking for is to contact one of our offices in Attleboro or Franklin, Massachusetts, or South Kingstown or Warwick, Rhode Island.
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