Stop Living with Chronic Pain: 3 Nonsurgical Treatments That Actually Work

Still dealing with pain after medication, therapy, or injections? Read on to learn about three nonsurgical treatments that target different sources of chronic pain and deliver lasting relief.

When chronic pain sticks around, it’s easy to believe your choices are limited: keep taking medication, keep waiting for it to improve, or start thinking about surgery.

But pain management has changed. Today, interventional treatments target specific sources of pain in ways that don’t mean major surgery.

At Florida Pain Medicine, our providers use minimally invasive treatments based on the root cause of your symptoms because a treatment that works well for irritated spinal nerves isn’t always the right treatment for long-standing nerve pain.

Before you sign up for surgery, here are three nonsurgical options that address chronic pain in different ways.

#1: Epidural steroid injections

If your pain starts in your back or neck and travels into an arm or leg, an irritated spinal nerve may be part of the problem.

Conditions such as a herniated disc or spinal stenosis can cause inflammation around nearby nerve roots, leading to pain, tingling, numbness, or other symptoms.

An epidural steroid injection delivers anti-inflammatory medication into the space around those nerves. Instead of moving through your whole body like an oral medication, the treatment places medication closer to the source of your pain.

Research shows the treatment is especially effective when the goal is short-term pain and disability relief. Reducing inflammation can give you enough relief to move more comfortably and participate more fully in physical therapy or exercise.

#2: Intracept

Not all chronic lower back pain comes from discs, muscles, or compressed nerves. Sometimes, the pain starts at damaged vertebral endplates, the place where your spinal discs meet the bones of your spine.

These endplates contain nerves, including the basivertebral nerve, that transmit pain signals. Damage to the endplates can cause vertebrogenic pain, or pain that originates inside the vertebrae.

Treating inflammation around the nerve won’t help, but a treatment called Intracept can be effective, offering improvement in both pain and function for up to five years.

During this minimally invasive procedure, your provider uses radiofrequency energy to disable the basivertebral nerve and interrupt pain signals.

Intracept works best for people with chronic lower back pain lasting at least six months who haven’t gotten sufficient relief from conservative treatment and whose MRI images indicate endplate damage is contributing to their pain.

#3: Spinal cord stimulation

For chronic pain involving the nervous system that persists despite medications, injections, physical therapy, and other procedures, your provider may consider spinal cord stimulation.

Instead of reducing inflammation or disabling one pain-transmitting nerve, it uses mild electrical impulses to modify pain signals before they reach your brain.

It’s a good treatment choice for chronic neuropathic pain, including persistent back or leg pain that hasn’t responded to other treatments.

Treatment begins with a temporary trial, allowing you and your provider to see how much your pain and daily function improve before deciding whether permanent implantation makes sense.

Studies show improvements in pain, function, and quality of life compared with conventional medical management.

The treatment that’s right for you depends on your pain

An epidural injection, Intracept, and spinal cord stimulation all treat chronic pain, but they don’t treat the same problem.

Getting an accurate diagnosis is the first step. Your symptoms, imaging, physical exam, previous treatments, and response to those treatments all help your Florida Pain Medicine pain specialist determine the cause of your pain.

Our providers use that information to build a personalized treatment plan to address the source of your symptoms and your treatment goals.

If chronic pain is keeping you from enjoying your life, you don’t have to assume surgery is your only next step. Schedule an appointment with Florida Pain Medicine to learn which nonsurgical treatment options make sense for you.