When you suffer from pain due to an injury or a medical condition, your doctor likely offers a variety of treatment methods for you to pursue to help you achieve pain relief. After all, you don’t want to go through life feeling less than 100% every day and want to do what you can to achieve pain relief. This is especially true if you experience back or neck pain. When you have a medical issue or injury where neck or back pain permeates through your body, this can make each day a painful experience and make it less likely that you can partake in activities you completed before your injury or medical diagnosis. Fortunately, there are treatment methods that may help, including facet injections and nerve blocks. So, what are facet injections and nerve blocks and could these treatment options be right for you?
What Are Facet Injections?
Facet injections work on the spinal facet joints and help to alleviate pain in this area. A facet injection involves injecting a steroid and local anesthesia into the facet joints. The purpose of a facet injection is to provide pain relief and help to reduce inflammation. Fluoroscopic guidance is used during the procedure to make sure the facet injection targets the correct area.
What Do Nerve Blocks Consist Of?
A nerve block also helps with pain relief; however, this treatment procedure targets a different area. One type of nerve block is a peripheral nerve block. The peripheral nerve block procedure involves injecting a local anesthetic into the target nerve. Sometimes the local anesthetic is combined with a steroid. The medical professional uses an ultrasound or imaging to ensure the nerve block targets the correct nerve during the procedure.
How Do These Treatment Methods Help?
Both the facet injection treatment and nerve block procedure help an individual achieve pain relief. The facet injections may help with medical conditions such as sciatica, spondylosis, spinal stenosis, facet joint pain, arthritis, and a herniated disc, to name a few. As for nerve block treatments, a doctor may prescribe this procedure to help with chronic back pain, post-surgical pain, arthritis pain, and neuropathy.
How Long Do the Procedures Take?
The facet injection and nerve block treatments can often be performed in a medical office under local anesthesia. Both types of treatments usually only take about 30 to 45 minutes to complete. The facet injection procedure results may occur within a short time after the injection while other patients may find it takes a few weeks to see improvement. The results of this type of procedure may last for a few months to a year. Recovery from a facet injection procedure is usually quick and many patients who receive this type of treatment can get back to normal daily activities within a few days.
As for nerve block treatments, patients may experience immediate results. However, it could be a longer period of time until the patient feels the full effect of the results. After the procedure, the patient may experience numbness or weakness in the area, but this is only temporary. Peripheral nerve block treatments offer pain relief for a limited time period, sometimes only a few hours or several days. Therefore, it may be necessary to repeat the treatment periodically.
Are Either One of These Treatments Right for You?
To determine if one or both of these treatments may be potential pain relief remedies for you, here are some questions to ask:
- Does your doctor recommend either of these treatments?
- Do you have continual pain where you need extra relief?
- Where is the pain located?
- What caused the pain to occur (medical condition, injury, or post-surgical)?
- Is the pain area located in the spinal region?
- Is the pain associated with the facet joints?
- How long would you like pain relief to last?
By working with your health professional, you can choose a treatment method that works best for your individual condition. If your medical provider hasn’t mentioned the facet injections or nerve blocks, you can ask them if either of these procedures may help you achieve pain relief.
Let Eclipse Clinic Help Treat Your Pain
You don’t have to go through life living in constant pain. There are options. Eclipse Clinic in Waxahachie, Texas, can help you as you pursue your pain relief options and administer the selected treatments. Speak with the Eclipse Clinic team about your medical condition or injury to see if facet injections or nerve blocks may be an option for you.
Contact the Eclipse Clinic team today to learn more at 469-290-7246.