Interventional Pain Management
Chronic pain can disrupt anyone’s life. When intense pain interferes with activities of daily living, and conservative therapies have not worked, Dr. Luo’s comprehensive pain management approach can help you get back to a life with less pain. Her treatment approach includes a combination of interventional pain management procedures and medication. Our clinic offers in-office sedation for most spinal procedures.
Procedures
Epidural Steroid Injections
An outpatient procedure done in the office that involves placing a small amount of anesthetic and an anti-inflammatory agent (steroid) into the epidural space of the spine. The introduction of these medications into the epidural space in a region of the spine results in pain relief by blocking pain signals from reaching the brain or reducing the inflammation causing pain in the first place. Patients who benefit from this procedure have degenerative diseases of the spine that causes pain to radiate down their arms or legs, upper back, shoulders, or chest, have herniated disc(s), postherpetic neuralgia, or intercostal neuralgia.
Therapeutic and Diagnostic Nerve Blocks
An outpatient procedure done in the office that can be used to diagnose or treat back pain. In this procedure, the anesthetic agent is injected into the nerve (called the medial branch) close to one of the joints in the spinal vertebrae (called a facet joint). Although some patients do report immediate and long term pain relief, this procedure is used mostly to diagnose the source of your pain. If you do not get pain relief from these injections, Dr. Luo may be able to conclude that your pain is not coming from your facet joints. If you do get sufficient relief from these medial branch blocks, even if it is temporary relief that only lasts for the duration of the life of the anesthetic, you may be a good candidate for radiofrequency ablation (also called rhizotomy). Patients that typically get relief from medial branch blocks typically have facet arthritis.
Radiofrequency Ablation (Rhizotomy/RFA)
If you receive good pain relief from medial branch blocks, you may be a good candidate for radiofrequency ablation (also called Rhizotomy/RFA). This procedure is an outpatient in office procedure that involves applying heat directly to the nerves that are causing your facet joint pain. This application of heat to the nerves modifies the nerves which disrupts the pain signals being sent to your brain and can result in long term relief for many patients.
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