Swedish Covenant Hospital's Pain Center offers a variety of pain medications and interventions that can reduce inflammation, block pain and ease nerves for pain sufferers. These treatments often allow patients to live and exercise with less pain, hastening recovery and reducing chronic pain.
Our most frequently used procedures are described below.
Epidural Injection
Patients who have low back pain and severe radiating pain sometimes have an epidural injection. Epidural injections are commonly used to reduce the amount of inflammation caused by a disc pushing on a nerve root, or to reduce joint inflammation in the spine. When administering an epidural injection, an anti-inflammatory medication is usually injected into the spinal epidural space. These injections can be given in the office or delivered using a fluoroscope in outpatient surgery, which helps guide the physician to the exact location for the injection.
FLUOROSCOPY
Fluoroscopy is the study of moving body structures, similar to an x-ray "movie." A continuous x-ray beam is passed through the body part being examined and transmitted to a TV-like monitor so that the body part and its motion can be seen in detail. This allows physicians to accurately locate, diagnose and treat the spinal pathology.
According to Dr. Xiaoyuan Xie, one of the board-certified pain physicians on staff, the use of fluoroscopy increases accuracy and can lead to quicker recovery time, as well as fewer injections.
While pregnant women should not have fluoroscopy of the chest or abdomen, fluoroscopy is a relatively safe procedure. Talk to your pain physician to determine if this is the right option for you.
Lidocaine Infusion
Swedish Covenant Hospital is one of the few hospitals in the nation to perform this procedure. A lidocaine infusion is a diagnostic procedure, which means it is actually used to assess your pain and then determine further treatment. Lidocaine is one type of medication, called a sodium channel blocker, that can be used to relieve pain. A lidocaine infusion quickly determines if sodium channel blockers are the right choice for you. Learn more about Lidocaine Infusions >
Joint Injection
Joint injections include pain medication injections into joints such as your shoulder, elbow, knee or tendon. These injections reduce inflammation around the joint and relieve your pain. Botox injections can also be administered for myofascial and entrapment pain.
Trigger Point Injection
Trigger points are areas of your body where muscle fibers come together. Due to stress, posture or trauma, these trigger points can become very tender and cause pain. Trigger point injections are actually injections into muscles, allowing them to relax and release painful tension.
We also use the latest minimally invasive procedures for pain management, including those listed below. Since these procedure names are very clinical, we encourage you to work with your pain physician to understand which of these procedures can benefit you.
- Cryoprobe, an instrument used to freeze nerves and relieve back and joint pain
- Radiofrequency procedures for varieties of pain syndromes
- Lysis of adhesions
- Highly selective epidurals: cervical, thoracic, lumbar
- Facet joint injections/medial branch nerve blocks
- Percutaneous disc decompression
- Intradiscal electrothermal therapy (IDET)
- Vertebroplasty
- Spinal cord stimulator
- Intrathecal morphine pumps
- Intrathecal baclofen pumps
- Selective spinal nerve root block
- Peripheral nerves block
- Sympathic ganglion block
- Discogram
- Sacroilioc joint injection with steroid or cooled radiofrequency ablation
To learn more about theses treatments or to consult with a pain physician, call Swedish Covenant Hospital's Pain Center at 773-989-6222.
