Courtesy of Buffalo Spine & Sports Medicine
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Health Statistics, 58.9% of people in the United States experienced pain sometime in the last three months. Most significant pain sites were back (39.0%), lower limb (36.5%), and upper limb (30.7%). Sadly, too many Americans are in pain, and often do not know where to find relief. That’s why the physicians at Buffalo Spine & Sports Medicine want Western New Yorkers to know about the minimally invasive fluoroscopic guided steroid injections for pain relief as an alternative to surgery.
The physicians explain, “Our spine, shoulder, hip, and sacroiliac joints are among the most difficult-to-reach areas of our body where steroids can be injected. These injections contain corticosteroids, such as dexamethasone, triamcinolone, or methyl prednisone, and anesthetic agents, such as lidocaine, to treat conditions such as shoulder arthritis, hip arthritis, lumbar spine arthritis, lumbar disc herniation, sacroiliac joint (SI) issues, sciatica, piriformis syndrome (pain and spasms in the buttock region), rotator cuff injuries, and more.
The procedure involves having an interventional specialist place a needle precisely in the affected area to deliver the medication mixture. When combined with physical therapy, these injections significantly reduce a patient’s pain quickly. Sometimes, the steroid can take from two to four days to decrease inflammation. However, a steroid injection can last for up to six weeks or longer, after which follow-up care is provided.
Buffalo Spine & Sports physicians are proud of their record of success in using more precise state-of-the-art fluoroscopy guided injections, which pass low-dose X-rays through the body to make a video of activity inside a part of the body in real time. This helps the interventional specialist to diagnose the exact cause of the problem in order to better treat it. Using this minimally invasive procedure, medicine is injected directly into the joint using a special imaging device to relieve their pain. Fluoroscopy is not painful, and patients are made comfortable throughout the procedure, often using a local anesthetic. Following the injection, patients are advised to go home and rest for a few hours. Within one to five days of the injection, patients will notice a significant reduction or absence of any pain.
Buffalo Spine & Sports has been at the forefront of this highly advanced method of guided imagery that delivers injections to a precise area of pain. The most common problems they see are lumbar disc herniation and lumbar spinal stenosis, for which they have experienced a 70% patient success rate. Thus, after more than 31 years of experience, Buffalo Spine and Sports Medicine is pleased with its high rate of success in using epidural steroid injections as an effective pain control option with minimal risk.
Learn more about epidural injections and other services provided by Buffalo Spine & Sports Medicine at https://buffspine.com. Call 716-626-0093 to make an appointment to be seen in either Williamsville or Orchard Park.
