Relieving Pain. Restoring Hope.

Nerve Blocks

About the treatment

A nerve block is a minimally invasive injection procedure used to treat a variety of types of chronic pain for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. These procedures can often be ordered to confirm the source of a patient’s pain to a very specific degree by using a local anesthetic without long-term pain relief medication, or corticosteroids may be used for longer-term pain reduction and once moved to the procedure suite, your Desert Pain Specialists physician will sanitize and numb the procedure area using a local anesthetic once fully numb, your physician will use fluoroscopic (x-ray) guidance to ensure proper needle placement and inject medication into the targeted area. Following the injection, patients are taken to our recovery suite for observation. If a sedative is used during the procedure, the patient is asked to have a ride home and should also follow patient precautions for the rest of the day.
 

After the treatment

Patients typically note some immediate pain relief from the anesthetic used in the procedure which indicates the procedure was a success and the correct area was treated. More long-term pain relief can take up to two weeks to take effect if a steroid is used. When performed for diagnostic purposes this injection will provide short-term pain reduction, however, when used for therapeutic it typically lasts 3-6 months. If you think a nerve block could be the right treatment to help relieve your chronic pain, contact Desert Pain Specialists for an evaluation.

Treatment

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