Interventional Pain Management Specialist

What is interventional pain management?

When your pain is getting in the way of you living a comfortable, happy life, interventional pain management can help. If other treatments have failed to provide relief, you can turn to the experts at Clifton Surgery Center for state-of-the-art therapies, including targeted injections, spinal cord stimulation, and intrathecal pain pumps.  

What kind of injections are available for pain management?

Injections are one of the most common interventional pain therapies provided at Clifton Surgery Center. A few types of injections administered for pain management include:

Epidural steroid injections

When steroids are injected directly where nerve roots leave your spine, they deliver significant relief from inflammation and pain. They’re often used to treat sciatica, but they’re effective for many causes of back pain.

Nerve blocks

Nerve blocks target the nerve that’s the source of your pain with an injection containing a local anesthetic and steroids. The anesthetic acts immediately, while steroids offer longer-lasting pain relief.

Facet joint injections

The facet joints connect the vertebrae in your spine. Inflammation and pain develop when they degenerate or develop other problems like bone spurs.

Your surgeon first uses a facet joint injection to determine which joint causes your pain, then uses it as a treatment by injecting a local anesthetic and steroids into the membrane surrounding the targeted joint.

Joint injections

Joint injections also rely on steroids, but may also contain regenerative ingredients such as stem cells that stimulate new tissue growth and promote healing.

What is spinal cord stimulation?

Spinal cord stimulation relieves your back pain without medication using a small pulse generator and a lead wire with 8-32 electrodes.

The generator delivers electrical impulses to the nerves in your spine responsible for transmitting pain signals to your brain. The electric current blocks the nerve signals so they don’t reach your brain and you stop feeling the pain.

Your expert at Clifton Surgery Center implants the pulse-generating device under your skin and runs lead wires from there to the targeted areas of your spine. Then a remote control adjusts settings and turns the device on and off to relieve pain when needed.

What is an intrathecal pain pump?

An intrathecal pain pump delivers medication directly to your spinal cord. Your surgeon implants a small pump under the skin of your abdomen, then runs a catheter from the pump to a targeted area in your spinal cord.

Since pain medication goes directly into the fluid of your spinal cord, you can achieve quick and effective pain relief with only a small amount of medication. Men and women using an intrathecal pain pump can reduce or eliminate the need for oral medications.

If you suffer from ongoing pain, call the interventional pain management specialists at Clifton Surgery Center — it’s time you finally found some relief.