Three Ways Epidural Steroid Injections Have Changed for Pain ...

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Epidural steroid injections for pain management are one of the most common and most effective procedures performed to alleviate pain.

The injections are utilized to relieve leg pain from a pinched nerve from a disc herniation, also for radiculopathy from a pinched nerve in the neck, along with spinal stenosis.

How are epidural steroid injections different today than they were 20 years ago? One thing that has not changed is their effectiveness.

Multiple studies in the literature have shown the effectiveness of epidural started injections for relieving sciatica and radiculopathy to be over 75%. Or a patient may need it may simply be a single injection that does the trick, multiple in a series.

At times effectiveness of epidural steroid injections can reach as high as 90%, which is the same as a surgical removal while avoiding the operative risks.

Here are 3 ways that injections into the epidural space have changed over the last 2 decades:

1. With regards to epidural injections, there has been a little bit of a change in their standard of care. The use of fluoroscopy, which is a real-time x-ray, has significantly altered the method with which epidural injections are performed.

There was an impressive study done over 10 years ago showing that if fluoroscopy was not utilized, the epidural started injections missed their mark about 30 to 40% of the time. The patient is having significant pain was undergoing the procedure, and deserves to have the chance of the most accurate epidural injection possible.

Fluoroscopy allows the most accurate injection possible, so it has become pretty much the standard of care for doing them.

2. Transforaminal epidural steroid injections have become much more popular. Over the last 10 to 15 years, transforaminal injections for relieving pain have increased in popularity due to the fact that the steroid is placed closer to the area of the nerve root impingement.

The theory behind the usage of transforaminal epidurals is that the steroid goes right to the area of the pinched nerve and gives better pain relief. Due to this, the popularity of these epidurals has increased dramatically over the variety that has conventionally been done known as intra-laminar epidurals.

3. The most current steroid medications used for epidural steroid injections has less amounts of particulate substances than that used in the past. If the particulate matter in the steroid is large enough it can lead to complications with the medication after is injected.

Because of this, a lot of pain management doctors are switching to cortisone injection material that has less particulate matter present. What you really want is a steroid medication with enough particulate matter to stick around for a while and give a long lasting anti-inflammatory effect, but not enough to cause complications.

If the size of particulate matter is too large potential complications will occur. So a happy medium is being reached where the potential complications are minimized but there is enough size of the particulate matter to enhance the duration of injections anti-inflammatory effect.

Want to find out more about the best pain management Scottsdale clinic in the Valley, then visit Preferred Pain Center?s site on how to choose the best pain management mesa az for your needs.

Source: http://newhealthandfitness.org/2012/03/08/three-ways-epidural-steroid-injections-have-changed-for-pain-management/

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