What You Need To Know About Managing Pain with Injections

If you suffer with nagging and debilitating chronic pain, have already tried medications and physical therapy with no relief, but want to avoid surgery, injections are an option for managing that chronic or even acute pain. Before you make that decision, here is what you need to know about managing pain with injections.

Managing Many Types Of Pain With Injections

Pain takes many forms from acute, chronic, cancer pain, and sometimes a combination. You can also have pain after surgery, an injury, or from nerve damage, and metabolic issues like diabetes.

Chronic pain is the kind of pain that affects you gradually, but you suffer with it every day. Once it starts it usually lasts longer than six months, and it is normally the result of a condition which is difficult to treat or sometimes even diagnose. In most cases, medications and physical therapy have been unsuccessful to relieve the pain for any length of time.

On the other hand, acute pain comes on quite suddenly and is due to some trauma, injury, or surgery. It is more short term lasting less than six months, and you only find relief once the root cause of the problem is treated.

After an injection pain relief can last weeks to months, and sometimes several injections will be needed. Unfortunately, some may not be helped, but in most cases, you can control the pain through injections.

Treatment For Joints

If you suffer with lower back pain, shoulder pain and discomfort in your neck, these are all common areas where injections can help. Just about every joint in our body can be treated with injections to reduce pain from tennis elbow to tendon degeneration, plus arthritis and bursitis.

What Happens During An Injection

Injections are usually performed on an outpatient basis with a local anesthetic applied to the skin first to decrease your pain temporarily. The injection itself consists of a steroid which decreases any inflammation and reduces your pain over the long term. It takes just a minute to complete, and most patients begin to feel relief quickly.