When an Epidural Steroid Injection is the Best Solution for Back Pain

Back pain is not only the leading cause of disability — it’s highly common, affecting 80% of the population in the United States. Making matters more difficult, back pain can be an incredibly tough condition to treat. To take back control of your life and find much-needed relief from back pain, epidural steroid injections may be just the solution you’re looking for.

At Integrated Spine & Pain Care in Farmingdale and Deer Park, New York, Dr. Mikael Sarij and his team of pain management specialists offer the perfect blend of physician-directed and chiropractic care, helping our patients overcome painful musculoskeletal problems. And when it comes to your all-important back, the team leaves no stone unturned, offering both symptom relief and long-term solutions that address the underlying problem.

Here’s a look at when epidural steroid injections may play a key role in remedying your back pain.

Back pain 101

As the foundation of your entire musculoskeletal structure, your back carries an enormous responsibility and burden, and this role is not without its hazards. Stresses in your back, along with age and injury, can lead to a host of painful back problems, including:

• Sciatica
• Muscle strain
• Spinal stenosis
• Herniated or bulging discs
• Arthritis
• Osteoporosis
• Compression fractures

This list is by no means comprehensive, but it gives you an idea of the myriad conditions under which back pain can develop.

For spinal problems that involve surrounding nerve roots, such as herniated discs and stenosis, back pain can be especially unbearable, which is why we offer a solution that goes straight to the source of your pain.

Epidural steroid injections to the rescue

If your back pain is caused by nerve compression or irritation, the problem can be tricky to deal with, because to heal properly, you need to fight through the pain. In most cases, the irritation of your nerves is caused by inflammation, so with a steroid injection, our goal is to reduce your inflammation — and pain — so that you can get the long-term relief you need from stubborn back pain.

As a conduit for your nervous system, your spine is surrounded by nerve roots that branch out to every part of your body. Surrounding these nerve roots is your dural, which is a thin, protective membrane. Encompassing your dural is your epidural space, which is a fat-filled area through which your nerves make their way to the rest of your body.

With epidural steroid injections, we inject steroids, as well as a local anesthetic, into this epidural space to quiet the immediate nerve activity (pain) while the steroids slowly go to work to reduce the inflammation.

To ensure that we deliver the injection into the right area, we rely on fluoroscopy — or X-ray guidance. Rest assured, we numb your skin for your comfort before we administer the injections.

The effects of the injection should be both immediate and gradual as the anesthetic and steroids do their jobs. Many of our patients enjoy relief for months, which allows us time to deploy chiropractic methods to correct misalignments in your spine that may be contributing to your back pain. Should your discomfort persist, we can follow up with another round of epidural steroid injections to ensure your pain-free mobility.

If you’d like to explore whether you’re a candidate for epidural steroid injections, contact our Farmingdale or Deer Park office to schedule a consultation. Our team members are standing by to get you started.