As you might suspect, leg pain arises from many possible causes — too many to list. However, the causes can be categorized as musculoskeletal, inflammatory, vascular, and neuropathic.

While active adults and athletes often develop leg pain due to musculoskeletal injuries, leg pain in older adults typically arises from degenerative diseases.

Several nerve problems can cause leg pain:

Peripheral neuropathy

When you have peripheral neuropathy, the motor or sensory nerves in your leg are damaged. The most common cause of peripheral neuropathy, diabetes, frequently damages the nerves in your feet as well.

Sciatica

Sciatica refers to pain that affects your legs when the sciatic nerve is pinched. This nerve problem is known for causing severe pain, tingling, and numbness as it radiates down your leg. Several degenerative conditions in your spine can cause sciatica, including a herniated disc, facet joint osteoarthritis, and degenerative disc disease.

Complex regional pain syndrome

This pain condition begins when you suffer an injury to your foot or leg, but then nerve damage makes the pain continue for a long time after the injury heals.

Although many possible treatments are available for the many causes of leg pain, the doctors at Spinal Diagnostics specialize in treating leg pain that persists after you determine whether your initial therapy provides enough pain relief.

The doctors provide interventional therapies that directly target the nerves responsible for your pain. While there are many types of interventional treatments, they generally work two ways.

Injections that reduce inflammation

The doctors inject steroids at or near the targeted nerve, where the medication significantly reduces inflammation. This calms the nerves and provides pain relief that lasts longer than a local anesthetic. Each person’s response to steroids is different, and the duration of pain relief varies from days to many months.

Techniques that block nerve signals

You can only feel leg pain after your brain receives information from the sensory nerves. When those nerve signals are blocks, your brain doesn’t get the message, and you don’t feel the pain.

The doctors at Spinal Diagnostics have numerous techniques to block nerve signals, including injecting a local anesthetic, wounding a specific nerve with radiofrequency ablation, and using a mild electrical impulse to block the nerve.

Blocking nerve signals effectively relieves leg pain that arises from any cause, even peripheral vascular disease. To get help with your leg pain, schedule an appointment online or call Spinal Diagnostics today.