Chronic neck and back pain not only affects your physical health, but your mental and emotional health too, leaving you feeling defeated and desperate for any treatment that provides a glimmer of hope. Although injection therapy may seem like the solution you’ve been seeking, we here at Texas Spine Consultants want to share a few facts and myths about injection therapy, so you can properly prepare yourself for what to expect.
Fact: Injection therapy isn’t the first choice for pain management
When you’re in pain, you may think the best thing to do is take something like a shot to relieve the pain and rest. But that isn’t the case when it comes to neck or back pain. In fact, it may be the opposite.
Depending on the underlying cause of your neck or back pain, we often recommend you start treatment with an anti-inflammatory and physical therapy. Stretching and exercising the right muscles may be all that you need to get long-term pain relief.
Only when conservative treatments, like physical therapy and over-the-counter pain medication, fail to help you get the relief you need do we then consider injection therapy.
Some of the injection therapies used to provide pain relief include:
- Steroid injection to reduce inflammation
- Nerve block to stop pain signals
- Facet joint block for spinal joint pain
The type of injection therapy you need depends on the underlying cause of your pain. And, for the record, injection therapy isn’t effective for all causes of neck or back pain.
Myth: Injection therapy provides long-term relief
When it comes to chronic back pain, you probably want a cure. Though injection therapy may help provide pain relief for an extended period of time, it isn’t a long-term solution. Depending on the type of injection we provide, you may feel relief anywhere from a few days to a few months. Additionally, you may need a series of injections to get the most benefits from treatment.
And your injections may not provide relief immediately. In fact, your pain may worsen initially before you start to feel better. But, injection therapy may help provide you with enough relief from your pain that you can participate in physical therapy and make long-term gains in pain relief and health.
Fact: Injection therapy may delay surgery
If surgery is the next step in the management of your neck or back pain, injection therapy may delay your need for surgery. This may be beneficial if your surgery requires a long recovery you aren’t in a position to take. Your injection therapy may reduce the inflammation and pain long enough for you to buy yourself time or make the necessary arrangements so you can get your surgery.
Myth: Injection therapy is just for pain
We don’t always recommend injection therapy as a tool for pain relief. Sometimes, we recommend injection therapy to help us determine the next step in your treatment. For example, a nerve block may help us identify the nerve causing your pain, so we can provide a more long-term solution, such as rhizotomy, which is a procedure that severs the nerve to stop the pain transmissions.
Injection therapy may seem like the answer to all of your back problems, and for some it may be. But injections can’t work on their own without a little help from you. To get real solutions for your back pain, call Texas Spine Consultants today, or request an appointment online.
