Procedures

Pain Management

At ACCESS Surgery Center, the Pain Management specialty offers a range of procedures to help manage your pain.

Transforaminal Epidural Injection
Transforaminal epidural injections are a popular, minimally invasive, non-operative treatment option for back and leg pain. These injections are used to alleviate pain in the lumbar spine caused by irritated nerves often as a result of herniated discs, degenerating discs, or arthritic spinal joints. The transforaminal epidural method allows the trained interventional spina and pain physician to have greater diagnostic power as it can be injected into a specific nerve root in the spine.

Radio Frequency Lesioning
Radiofrequency lesioning is a minimally invasive procedure that uses electrical impulses to cause long-term damage to nerves or tissue that send pain signals to the brain. This technique disrupts communication between the nerve and the brain, lessening the patient’s pain. Physicians perform this procedure under x-ray guidance, which gives them more accurate needle placement accessibility.

Spinal Cord Stimulators
A spinal cord stimulator is an implanted device that sends low levels of electricity directly into the spinal cord to relieve pain. The electricity masks pain signals before they reach the brain. This small device, much like a pacemaker, is most often used after nonsurgical pain management options have failed to provide relief. Spinal cord stimulators require two procedures: one to test the stimulator and one to implant the device.

Intra-Spinal Spacers
Interspinous process decompression (IPD) is a minimally invasive procedure that implants a device between the spinous processes, which are the thin, bony projections on the back of the spine. These spacers create more room for the spinal cord and spinal column nerves without removing any bone. This procedure is often used to relieve symptoms of spinal stenosis.

Sacroiliac pain procedures
Sometimes chronic low back pain is caused by dysfunction of or disease that affects the sacroiliac joint, often referred to as the “SI joint.” The SI joints connect the sacrum to the large pelvic bone. Pain originating at the SI joint can manifest in the low back, hips, buttocks, and thighs. Treatment options for SI joint dysfunction can include bipolar radiofrequency neurotomy, which is a minimally invasive treatment that disables and prevents specific spinal nerves from transmitting pain signals to the brain.