Are you experiencing chronic pain in your butt, leg(s), or feet? Have you already tried conventional therapy, such as medication, physical therapy, or injection, but received no good results? If this is your case, a Lumbar Sympathetic Block may be the right treatment option for you.
What is Lumbar Sympathetic Block?
Lumbar Sympathetic Nerve Block is a procedure that treats a variety of painful syndromes that usually don’t respond to traditional modalities. During the procedure, a minimal amount of anesthetic is injected onto your sympathetic ganglion, which is located on the lumbar spine. This treatment interrupts signals from the sympathetic nervous system (SNS.), resulting in pain relief.
What are the benefits of Lumbar Sympathetic Block?
Blocking the SNS is one of the most effective and minimally invasive ways to prevent pain. It can bring immediate relief and enables the patient to participate in physical therapy that can help them return to their normal activities faster. Lumbar Sympathetic Block can also diagnose and treat pain that are not responsive to conventional therapies, such as phantom limb pain, postherpetic neuralgia, ischemic limb pain, and even cancer pain.
How does Lumbar Sympathetic Block work?
Since SNS plays a big role in neuropathic pain, blocking it has been proven to handle even hard-to-treat syndromes. It targets the sympathetic chain and ganglia located anterior to the lumbar spine’s vertebral bodies. The procedure can be diagnostic (determining whether pain is sympathetically mediated or not), prognostic (determining if treatment approach is beneficial), or therapeutic (treating a variety of conditions.)
Will I immediately feel better?
You’ll know that the sympathetic block has been successful if you feel a warm sensation coming over the leg in the side of the procedure. There are several possible outcomes after the block:
- Pain is lessened or completely eliminated right after the anesthetic wears off. You will be guided to a treatment plan in order to maximize pain control.
- You feel a warm sensation, but there is no pain relief. This indicates a successful block. However, the doctor needs to diagnose further and come up with another treatment plan.
- There is no warm sensation and no pain relief. This indicates that the procedure wasn’t done properly.
Should I undergo Lumbar Sympathetic Block?
If you tried medication, physical therapy, and other conservative therapies, but failed to achieve relief, this treatment may be a good option for you. Make sure to only choose board-certified pain management specialists, such as Spine Center of Texas, to perform the procedure.
