How Can an Epidural Help My Chronic Back Pain?

Do you wake up to an aching back most mornings? Or does your back tend to be painfully stiff after sitting for long periods of time? When you live with chronic back pain, ongoing discomfort might be an everyday reality for you. 

At Pain Medicine Group in Sarasota and Oviedo, Florida, our expert team offers a wide variety of pain management techniques and interventions. In this month’s blog, we’re discussing what could be behind your chronic back pain and when it might be time to consider an epidural steroid injection for pain relief. 

Common causes of chronic back pain

Chronic back pain differs from acute back pain. While acute back pain comes on suddenly and typically resolves within a few weeks, chronic back pain often develops slowly and lasts longer than six weeks, stemming from an underlying condition. 

Many different things can lead to ongoing back pain, and it’s often linked to issues with your spine. These are some of the most common culprits of chronic back pain:

• Pinched nerve
• Herniated disc
• Degenerative disc disease
• Arthritis of the spine
• Spinal stenosis 

In other cases, chronic back pain could also result from overuse or an acute injury that never healed properly. 

Lifestyle interventions for chronic back pain

Sometimes, making lifestyle changes can improve your back muscle and spine health, resulting in reduced pain and improved mobility. 

Doing some light movement, such as stretching and walking, several times a day can prevent stiffness from prolonged periods of sitting and help keep your back flexible. You may even need to examine how you’re sitting — a slouched or hunched position puts strain on your spine. 

Getting enough sleep and practicing meditation or other stress-relief methods to promote your body’s natural healing process and relax tight and overworked muscles. 

Our treatments for chronic back pain

When you see our Pain Medicine Group team for chronic back pain, we start with a thorough evaluation to locate the source of your discomfort, allowing for effective treatment. We offer several nonsurgical treatments, including physical therapy, transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation (TENS), and epidural steroid injections. 

An epidural is an injection that contains an anti-inflammatory steroid medication that our experienced doctors inject into the space around your spinal nerves (epidural space). For example, for certain low back pain, we might recommend lumbar caudal epidural steroid injection through your tailbone.

The steroid reduces the inflammation in your spinal nerves that have become injured or irritated due to a condition such as degenerative disc disease, a compressed nerve, or a herniated disc. This not only reduces pain but also provides your body with tools to heal on its own. 

At Pain Medicine Group, we specialize in pain that affects the back and spine, and we offer several types of epidural steroid injections that can target your specific pain. To learn more about how our team can help you get effective relief from chronic back pain, schedule an evaluation by calling the nearest office location or using our online booking today.