When you’re suffering from musculoskeletal pain, treatment starts with the most conservative strategy: resting. If that isn’t enough, you may add over-the-counter pain medications or ice packs. When home care is insufficient, it’s time to call the doctor.
That’s typically how effective health care works. You move from conservative, low-impact therapies through increasingly aggressive strategies until you find relief. It’s what we do at Southern Westchester Orthopedics & Sports Medicine when treating patients with orthopedic injuries.
In this blog, we address injection-based pain strategies, treatments that fall somewhere in the middle of the treatment ladder between rest and surgery. As injection specialists, we commonly use four different types of injections to help with musculoskeletal pain. Understanding the role of each helps you know what to expect from your pain treatment.
Also known as neural blockades, nerve blocks have many uses in medicine. Frequently used in surgical settings, perhaps the best-known nerve block is the epidural, an anesthetic injection used to ease pain during childbirth. The word “epidural” refers to the target space in the spine that provides lower body relief.
At Southern Westchester Orthopedics & Sports Medicine, we typically use nerve blocks in two ways. An injection into a specific nerve can isolate which nerve sends pain signals to the brain, handy for procedures like radiofrequency ablation. Nerve blocks also provide temporary pain relief, and they can combine with other therapies to hasten your recovery.
Corticosteroids are manufactured medicines that closely mimic cortisol, an adrenal hormone your body produces naturally. Steroid injections are powerful anti-inflammatories that can relieve pain and speed healing in the area around a musculoskeletal injury. Combining a steroid injection with a nerve block can provide short-term pain relief with long-lasting reductions in inflammation.
Natural forms of hyaluronic acid exist throughout the body. It’s a natural anti-inflammatory, and it promotes growth of bone and cartilage tissue in joints.
A key characteristic of hyaluronic acid is its ability to bind with water, creating the gel-like viscosity of synovial fluid, a lubricating cushion within your joints. Manufactured hyaluronic acid injections supplement the natural supply of synovial fluid that diminishes with age or conditions like osteoarthritis.
You may know them as muscle knots, tender bumps often found on the back. Pressing on them generates an unusual pain that hurts while sometimes feeling welcome. That’s a myofascial trigger point. These develop from sudden injury or repeated micro traumas, creating what you feel as knots.
Trigger point injections use several strategies to release the tissue tension in these areas. The act of piercing the trigger point with a needle stimulates the breakup of the knot along with relieving its associated tension. Trigger point injections can be done with a dry needle, but we frequently combine the therapy with anesthetics, corticosteroids, or other liquids.
With locations in Yonkers, the Bronx, and Mamaroneck, New York, Southern Westchester Orthopedics & Sports Medicine is near you when you need help with musculoskeletal pain. Contact the nearest office by phone or online to book your consultation and examination today.
