It’s not easy trying to manage physical pain, especially when you’re not sure why you’re experiencing it. Your healthcare professional will suggest different treatments depending on your condition.
One of the most effective ways of treating pain is through selective nerve root injection. Health professionals commonly prescribe selective nerve root injection to treat an inflamed spinal nerve in patients. They also use it as a form of diagnosis. Healthcare professionals inject an anesthetic or steroid into the spinal nerve during this process. But why not use epidural injection for pain management?
An epidural injection is another type of treatment that helps manage pain for spinal disc herniation and spinal stenosis. However, you may want to consider using the selective nerve root injection instead, and this article will tell you why. There are many similarities between both the injections, but one is safer and more effective.
The Similarities between Selective Nerve Root Injection & Epidural Injection
Both selective nerve root injection and epidural injection help treat pain but are similar in different ways. Both of these injections are great numbing agents and include steroid medication when administered to the patient for pain relief. Experts administer both medications through fluoroscopy. It is an imaging technique that helps them inject the medicine in the right area.
Though both these injections are quite similar, there are also a few differences. These nuances are important to consider when choosing one. One of the main differences is that selective nerve block injection is both a diagnostic and therapeutic procedure. However, epidural steroid injections only have therapeutic properties.
The SNRJ also manages a specific part of pain while the epidural injection treats a broader area. This broader area also includes several pathologies along with the spine. Lastly, experts administer selective nerve block injection through a specific nerve. Conversely, the epidural injection goes through the spinal cord in the epidural space offering symptomatic relief, covering a bigger area.
How Effective are Selective Nerve Root Injections For Pain Management?
The Malaysian Orthopedic Journal posted a study, which included 40 patients suffering from disc prolapse and nerve-related pain. Each individual felt immense relief after taking the selective nerve root injection. The study found that selective nerve root injections provide short-term relief of pain when treating spinal disc herniation.
5 Reasons to Use Selective Nerve Root Injection Instead of an Epidural Injection for Pain Management
Both the selective nerve root injection and epidural injection are somewhat similar. Nevertheless, many healthcare professionals opt for selective nerve root injection, which is best for pain management. Here are 5 reasons why you should get a selective nerve root injection instead of an epidural injection:
1. SNRI’s Provide Pain Relief in the Cervical Spine and Lumbar Spine
Pain from the cervical spine and lumbar spine can be quite excruciating to bear. But through selective nerve root injection, you can attain immediate short-term relief from pain. It also helps reduce inflammation.
The success rate with selective nerve root injections is quite high. When treating pain in the cervical spine, according to a study, one injection helped around 57% of patients. These patients reported a massive improvement in their pain within 6 months.
Another study showed the success rate of a selective nerve root injection in the lumbar spine. It reduced pain in 46% of patients within a year. This injection proves to be quite effective when treating the cervical spine and the lumbar spine. While some patients might not experience similar relief through this injection, others will only experience short-term relief for some weeks.
The steroid in the injection takes time to work, so the therapeutic effect may differ for everyone. These injections prove more effective in relieving pain when patients engage in physical therapy and strengthening exercises.
2. It’s Safe to Use
Experts claim that selective nerve root block injections are safer as the procedure is simpler. Furthermore, there are very few side effects or complications that come with it. The selective nerve root injection procedure is safer than epidural injections. The procedure involves going through the epidural, which invites many complications. Selective nerve root injections don’t have these complications, making them safer to use for pain management.
3. Many Complication’s in The Epidural Injection
Compared to the selective nerve root injection, the epidural injection has more side effects. One of the main side-effects that come with the epidural injection is the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, this comes with Cushing’s syndrome in which a fatty lump develops between the shoulders and come in a round pink appearance. Other side effects include insomnia, hiccups, sleeplessness, and radicular pain. These side effects are why many professionals prefer not to use the epidural injection for pain management
4. Concern of Arachnoiditis
According to a few cases reported by the FDA, people complained about spinal pain experienced after their epidural shot. This specific spinal pain leads to Arachnoiditis. Arachnoiditis is a pain disorder from inflammation that derives from the arachnoid. This is one of the membranes that protect the spinal cord. Inflammation caused by Arachnoiditis leads to scar tissue formation, causing the spinal nerves to stick together leading towards a malfunction.
The FDA came forward with 131 neurological adverse cases of which 41 cases consisted of Arachnoiditis. According to a few reveals, the complications related to epidural injections were linked to neurological complications.
5. Epidural Injections Lead to Bone Loss
According to recent research, Epidural injection for pain management especially in the back leads to bone loss in postmenopausal women. A single epidural injection is more than enough to affect the bone density of the hip among postmenopausal women. Although more research is necessary to prove these effects, patients must account for it, especially postmenopausal women.
The Process of Selective Nerve Root Injections: How Do They Work?
As you already know, selective nerve root injection helps treat pain. Healthcare experts might mix anesthetics in the injection at times or they might use it alone. The steroid has different mechanisms that allow it to blocks the fibers within the nerves resulting in less pain.
The steroids also decrease the permeability of the nerve fibers to receive blood. This gradually leads to a decrease in pain transmission. Along with this the steroids it engages in the action of specific enzymes like phospholipase A that leads to pain and irritation.
These are the mechanisms through which the pain signals are reduced by the target nerve. When administering the injection, the expert will first thoroughly clean the skin where the injection will go. This step is usually carried out to prevent the risk of infection. The needle placement needs to be correct. So to measure this expert will first insert small amounts of contrast dye to check the needle's location.
This also prevents the chances of injecting the medicine into your blood vessels. Every patient has different anatomic variations due to which the doctor will need an ultrasound or fluoroscopy to locate the nerve. The injection can recreate the usual pain which the patient was experiencing before.
Risks of Selective Nerve Block Injection
The risks from a selective nerve block injection are very rare; however, there is a small chance that these could occur. The different risks that you should watch out for are allergic reactions, infection, bleeding, Pneumothorax, and spinal cord damage. Temporary muscle weakness is also very common and some patients might experience it if the medication flows towards the nerves motor fibers. The good thing is that the weakness doesn’t last for long and goes away within an hour.
Final Words
With the help of this article, you can now see why you should get a selective nerve root injection other than an epidural injection for pain management. Whatever injection you plan to get, you must make sure you get a proper consultant from a professional healthcare expert and don’t do anything before that because you could make the pain worse.