Nerve root sheath injections

Injections around the nerve root can work in a diagnostic way – as, if a patient’s pain gets better, then it means that it must be referred pain.  If the patient gets a recurrence of pain, then a simple keyhole decompression/microdiscectomy operation is likely to help in order to reduce the pressure on the nerve root.

By contrast, if the spinal injection to the nerve root sheath does not help, the pain is probably then coming from the actual spinal structures themselves and a more complex major surgery – such as spinal fusion may be more relevant.

Epidural injections

An epidural injection is of little diagnostic help in differentiating the precise mechanism of pain as it delivers the injection to the whole central spinal canal and spreads to multiple roots as well as the rest of the spinal structures – though they do help in confirming that pain is spinal and not originating from the hip or shoulder joint.

Spinal injections for cervicogenic headaches

For people who suffer with headaches that are due to problems in the neck, spinal injections can help.  For more information regarding Cervicogenic headaches, please press here.