If you’re experiencing chronic back pain, you have one goal: to eliminate the pain so you can get back to normal life. Thankfully, there are many remedies for back pain that don’t involve surgery. By the end of this article, you should be able to choose from one of the following back pain treatments.
Epidural Steroid Injections
This non-surgical back pain relief treatment involves an injection of an anti-inflammatory medication into the area between the bone and the protective sac of the spinal nerve. Pain relief is generally felt after two or three days but can take up to a week in some cases. This is a popular treatment because the pain relief can last from weeks to years, depending on a variety of factors.
Electromyogram
An EMG measures the amount of electrical activity in the muscles. It helps identify the health of your muscles, motor neurons, and the cells that control them. By doing this, we can diagnose a wide range of neurological disorders that could be causing back pain.
A nerve or muscle disorder is often accompanied by numbness, tingling, pain, or weakness in your muscles. To conduct this non-surgical test, a needle electrode is inserted into the muscles and attached to a machine that records the results.
Major Joint Injections
A non-surgical spine specialist injects a local anesthetic into the affected joint to identify the problem area. Once the painful joint is located, a corticosteroid injection is administered to reduce inflammation and provide longer-lasting pain relief. These injections can treat pain in all major joints, including the back, elbow, wrist, shoulder, knee, ankle, hand, and foot.
Medial Branch Facet Blocks
A medial branch facet block is a diagnostic procedure used to treat painful facet joints. These joints are located between the vertebrae of the spine and allow the spine to bend and flex. The goal is to determine which joint or nerve branch is causing the pain and temporarily block the pain signal.
The surrounding tissue is numbed with a local anesthetic, and a needle is inserted into the targeted area. A contrast solution is used to confirm proper needle placement before anesthetic medication is injected into the medial branch nerves to interrupt the pain signal.
Rhizotomy
Rhizotomy is a back pain treatment designed to stop pain signals from an inflamed facet joint. Using fluoroscopic guidance, the surgeon inserts an electrode and delivers mild electrical currents to stimulate the nerve. The electrode is then heated to disable the nerve, preventing it from sending pain signals to the brain.
This is a popular treatment for back and neck pain caused by arthritis and herniated discs.
Sacroiliac Joint Injections
This non-surgical treatment for back pain targets pain associated with the sacroiliac joint, which connects your sacrum to your hip bones. This joint is a major shock absorber when bending or lifting and is a common source of lower back pain.
The procedure involves numbing the area with a local anesthetic before inserting a needle into the sacroiliac joint. Contrast dye confirms proper needle placement, and an anti-inflammatory cortisone medication is then injected.
Selective Nerve Root Blocks
This procedure is used to treat pinched nerves in the spine. The non-surgical treatment involves fluoroscopy and X-ray imaging to guide the needle to the affected area. Once the needle is properly positioned, anesthetic medication is injected into the foramen space, coating the irritated nerve and helping to relieve pain.