Interventional pain management has several methods of treatment that can be used to minimize pain and as well improve your quality of life. These treatments are used for patients that have tried some other therapies that the outcome was not successful. What will be discussed in this article are other treatments asides from therapy that can be used in interventional pain management.
1. INJECTIONS: Several types of injections can be used in interventional pain management as a treatment to either temporarily take care of the pain or permanently help take away the pain you are going through. Such injections include cervical epidural steroid injections, facet joint injections, lumbar transforaminal epidural steroid injections, lumber epidural steroid injections, and so on. Patients that are having facet joint symptoms which include the lower back, buttocks, or thighs might get relieved with this interventional pain management approach of using injections.
2. NERVE BLOCKS: This is another type of IPM treatment that can be helpful for patients that have low back pain such as sacroiliac joint pain or facet joint pain. The administration of nerve blocks is based on the specific symptoms and what has been diagnosed. The physician will block the nerve that gives the joint sensation, these nerve block types include celiac plexus block, lumbar sympathetic block, stellate ganglion block, and medial branch block.
3. RADIOFREQUENCY ABLATION: This type of interventional pain management treatment works well for patients who have had a successful nerve block treatment. Radiofrequency ablation makes use of heat therapy to minimize or eliminate pain signals to the brain. Patients with facet joint syndrome symptoms such as arthritis or sacroiliitis may benefit a relief from this type of treatment.
4. SPINAL CORD STIMULATION: This type of interventional pain management treatment works if a patient has failed back surgery syndrome, lumbar radiculitis, cervical radiculitis, neuropathy, or complex regional pain. This treatment involves putting electrodes through a minimally invasive procedure close to the spinal cord. These electrodes break pain nerve signals to the brain which provides pain relief.
5. INTRATHECAL PAIN PUMP: This treatment is considered for difficult or severe pains that can’t be managed such as cancer-related pains. How it works is that an intrathecal pump releases small doses of medication straight into the area around the spinal cord and this stops the pain signal from reaching the brain. This implies that the medication will bypass the GIT (gastrointestinal tract and drastically minimize side effects.