Low Back Pain Specialist

What causes low back pain?

Acute low back pain may appear after a sports injury or when you strain your back during everyday activities like lifting. However, overuse injuries account for most cases of back pain.

Overuse injuries develop gradually as you repeatedly make the same movements. The stress of the ongoing movement creates tiny tears in the ligaments and muscles. If you don't rest your back, the tears worsen, resulting in inflammation and pain.

Your spine goes through changes over the years. This degeneration causes conditions such as:

• Facet joint arthritis
• Herniated discs
• Spinal stenosis
• Degenerative disc disease
• Slipped vertebrae

These conditions cause localized pain, pinched nerves, and spine instability.

What symptoms accompany low back pain?

When you have low back pain, you tend to change your posture to ease the pain. This places excessive stress on the soft tissues supporting the spine, leading to muscle spasms (trigger points) and limited spine movement.

Pinched nerves cause pain, tingling, and burning sensations that travel down one or both legs. Severe nerve damage may lead to muscle weakness or leg numbness.

How is low back pain treated?

Low back pain is notorious for being hard to treat, even with powerful pain medications. When you need to find relief, the team at Metro Anesthesia & Pain Management can help with a vast array of treatment options.

Interventional treatments

Interventional treatments are especially effective because they target specific nerves responsible for your pain. Some injections reduce inflammation. However, most interventional treatments stop the nerves from sending pain messages to your brain.

Examples of interventional options include:

• Epidural steroid injections
• Facet joint injections
• Medial branch nerve blocks
• Sacroiliac joint injections
• Trigger point injections
• Radiofrequency ablation
• Spinal cord stimulation

Your provider administers all these treatments in the comfort of the Metro Anesthesia & Pain Management office. This convenience also helps keep your medical costs down.

Stem cell injections

Stem cells uniquely self-replicate to produce new stem cells. Then the new cells develop into the tissues needed to heal injured and degenerated discs, muscles, ligaments, and cartilage.

After your provider injects stem cells at the site of damaged spine structures, the cells do their natural job of healing.

Ketamine therapy

Your provider may recommend an intravenous infusion of ketamine. This medicine quickly travels to your brain, where it relieves your pain by the way it influences the structures that regulate pain.

Don't put up with low back pain. Call Metro Anesthesia & Pain Management or book an appointment online today.