Unfortunate as it is, millions of people throughout the country experience chronic pain. From post-laminectomy syndrome and lumbar spinal stenosis to radiofrequency ablation and sciatica, chronic pain conditions can seriously damper your day-to-day life and overall health. Even less-severe conditions like mild back and neck pain can be detrimental to one’s health. In terms of numbers, pain is one of the most common ailments in the United States. More Americans suffer from a pain condition than diabetes, heart disease, and cancer put together. Twenty-six million Americans suffer from frequent back pain alone. Treating neck and back pain in themselves costs Americans an annual $86 billion! Needless to say, pain conditions are on quite a few minds nowadays.
For people with back pain especially, there are a number of treatments available to relieve the pain. Epidural steroid injections, for example, are injections delivered directly into the spine that provides a combination of anesthetic and steroid fluids to reduce swelling and relieve pain.
Another method of back pain treatment is spinal cord stimulation. Spinal cord stimulation involves the emission of electrical impulses to the spinal cord in order to disrupt pain signals. It is an effective treatment against chronic pain disorders. In addition, nerve blocks are another kind of injection that block certain nerve cells that emit pain signals to the brain.
What are some of the chronic pain disorders that afflict so many Americans? Sciatica is a disorder, for example, that affects the sciatic nerve, which in turn affects the lower back, causing severe pain. Post-laminectomy syndrome is a chronic pain disorder that is caused from back surgery. It is a complication many people endure after undergoing back procedures. Phantom limb syndrome is a disorder in which amputees “feel” their missing limb as though it still existed. It can cause tremendous amounts of pain in the areas where the limb should be.
What do you think about chronic pain disorders and their treatments? Feel free to leave a comment or question below.
