Interventional injection methods used in the treatment of low back pain have been applied with increasing frequency all over the world for forty years.
What is the place of injections in the treatment of low back pain?
Various injection methods used in low back pain provide rapid and complete recovery in many painful diseases of the low back.
These injections typically used various medications for low back pain and did not benefit from it; It is also applied to patients who have not achieved sufficient relief in pain with physical therapy methods and do not require surgical intervention. These injections are used to relieve pain, but are also useful for revealing the source of pain.
How do injection techniques reduce pain?
Injections are much more effective for pain relief than oral medications or injections from the hip or vein. Because the drugs applied with these methods are not distributed all over the body, but are delivered directly to the anatomical regions that cause the pain.
Steroid type drugs applied to the painful area eliminate the inflammation at the source of the pain with their strong anti-inflammatory effects. In addition, with such drugs applied in lumbar hernia, for example, the edema around the hernia is regressed and the incident area is relieved.
How are injections used in the diagnosis of low back pain?
Injections can be administered to diagnose the source of low back pain. If the cause of the pain cannot be revealed exactly by physical examination and imaging methods, various injections can determine the origin of the pain in the lower back. For this purpose, local anesthesia (subject drug) drugs are given to various structures in the waist.
What are the injections used in the treatment of low back pain?
The most frequently used injections are; * Epidural and transforaminal injections * Nerve root blocks * Facet joint injections * Sacroiliac joint injections.
Which of the methods do you apply the most?
The most common injection method in the treatment of low back pain is epidural and transforaminal injections, as is the case all over the world. Epidural injection is the administration of drugs with strong anti-inflammatory effects into the spinal canal. It is a procedure that has been used in the treatment of various spinal pains for more than 40 years in the world, provides good results and has very few side effects.
To whom can epidural and transforaminal injections be applied?
Injections are mostly applied in herniated disc patients. The aim here is to eliminate the edema in the hernia onset or the herniated disc area, to reduce the inflammation around the disc and possible nerve root compression. The method is a common method due to its low risk and no potential for significant side effects.
It is especially preferred for disc-induced low back and leg pains that cannot be improved by conservative methods such as drug therapy, exercise and physical therapy. The same method is applied in hernias of the neck and back vertebrae as well as the waist. In most of the patients in whom the procedure is applied, the pain disappears completely. The procedure can be repeated in a small number of patients who do not improve. The general acceptance is that the process can be applied 3 times in a few months.
How is the process implemented?
Our patient, to whom the procedure will be performed, is taken to the private intervention room. The injection is administered with a special imaging method called fluoroscopy, that is, by seeing the operation area. Before the injection, local anesthesia is applied to the intervention area, so that the patient does not feel pain during the procedure. After the procedure, which takes about 30 minutes, we take our patient to his room. After a rest period of 3-4 hours, we send him home.
