Treatment
In general there are four treatment options for patients with chronic spinal pain. Physical therapy can be effective for many people, particularly physical therapy that emphasizes activity and return to function. For patients that have pain despite physical therapy surgery can sometimes be effective. The success of surgery is highly dependent on an accurate diagnosis as to the source of pain. Another option for patients is to simply live with their pain as best as they can, sometimes with the assistance of pain medications or other methods such as acupuncture.
Another alternative for treating spinal pain is injections. If your doctor knows where your pain is coming from he or she may recommend a therapeutic injection. Therapeutic injections differ from diagnostic injections in that they are intended to treat pain, rather than diagnose its cause. Most therapeutic injections use local anesthetic and cortisone medications, although sometimes other substances or even heat can be applied. Examples of therapeutic injections include epidural, facet, sacroiliac, sympathetic injections, facet rhizotomy, and intradiscal electrothermal therapy.
Therapeutic injections have two potential benefits. The first is they may provide long term pain relief. The likelihood of significant, lasting pain relief after a therapeutic injection will vary according to the source of pain and the specific injection, but typically is in the 50%-60% range. The second potential benefit of a therapeutic injection is that even though it only provides short term relief of pain (e.g. 2-3 weeks), during that time other treatments such as physical therapy will be much more effective. The combination of the injection and additional treatments (as ordered by your doctor) may then lead to long term pain relief.
