The numbers surrounding pain in the United States are eye-opening. To wit, more than 20% of the population reports chronic pain, and 8% experience high-impact pain. If you find yourself in either of these groups and you’re hobbled by pain, nerve blocks may be the solution.

At Spinal Diagnostics, our team of pain management specialists offers a wide range of services designed to restore pain-free movement to our patients. In the following, we explore a simple technique — nerve blocks — and why it may hold the key to your pain puzzle.

Pain can be very tricky to manage under the best of circumstances. You want to identify and remedy the source of your pain, but the pain itself prevents you from taking any action that might address the problem, such as physical therapy.

Nerve blocks is a great technique in which we target the nerves responsible for relaying your brain’s pain signals. By muting those signals, you’ll find relief and the respite you need to take more sustainable steps toward resolving your painful condition.

Of course, there are times when the underlying cause of your pain is something that may be beyond your control to change or may require surgery, which you may not be keen to undergo. In these instances, nerve blocks are a great way to keep the pain at bay without resorting to more aggressive and invasive solutions.

When we perform a nerve block, we typically inject a combination of an anesthetic and an anti-inflammatory. This combination reduces any swelling that compresses your nerve and offers near-immediate relief with the analgesic.

We also use nerve blocks as a diagnostic tool to locate the source of your pain.

The most common types of nerve blocks include:

• Epidural injections along your spine
• Facet joint injections
• Sacroiliac joint injections
• Trigeminal nerve blocks 
• Cervical plexus block
• Maxillary nerve block
• Brachial plexus block

Ultimately, we can turn to nerve blocks most anywhere you’re experiencing pain, including your back, shoulders, neck, arms, legs, and more.

This question is a tough one to answer. When the nerve block is on target, some patients experience months, and even years, of relief while others find comfort for a few weeks only. There are many variables, and it's difficult to predict how your body will respond to a nerve block. Our experience is that we’ve been able to help scores of our patients regain pain-free movement through nerve blocks, and we feel it’s a great solution.

If you’d like to explore whether nerve blocks may be right for your pain, please contact one of our two locations in Tualatin or Newberg, Oregon, to set up an appointment.