Back Pain: Injections - Health Channel

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Back Pain: Injections |

Dr. Jose Mena, Interventional Spine Specialist with Miami Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Institute, says the first step is having a MRI or a CT scan that they use prior to the procedure that will serve as a road map, so they have an idea of what the problem is.

He explains in the spine there are the different bones called vertebra and in between them there are the different soft tissues, called the discs, which are where the nerves come out from. With the injections, doctors can treat the pain putting a needle inside the disc.

Transcript

Doctor we’re looking obviously at the spine and tell us these minimally invasive injections where they put well we do this minimum basic we’ll be using as ruffles talking to us before we use x-ray so we are an idea based on them first of all we have an MRI or a CT scan that we use prior to the procedure and normally we it serve as a road map so already we have an idea where the problem is just based on the history physical examination matching that with MRI so already we come into into play when we go into the room just knowing the detail Anatomy or the patient so normally we get x-rays and basically this is the spine looking kind of from the side view so in the spine we have the different bones which are called the vertebra in between the bones we have the different soft tissues or cushions which are called the discs in this hole here called a neuro foramen that’s where the nerve they actually they come out from that they go down to the leg that’s something when they can get compressed people called a sciatica so there are different structures here that can be targeted when we’re doing injections first of all we have there’s a couple joints in here called the Seco PO physio or facet joints then normally under x-ray guidance we can access those we have the hole where there are nerve are coming out from normally that’s what the epidural spaces we call the transferrin or injections we guide those injections using x-ray guidance into that space a lot more sophisticated procedures that we sometimes we can do will be disco disco grams or discography so basically we put a needle inside the disc to kind of see what as symptoms are coming out from the disc so it’s more of a diagnostic tool sometimes if there are fractures in the back sometimes we employ procedures such as kyphoplasty so what that means is that we put some cement into the spine to harden or seal the fracture to a lot of patients to get better that’s one on least we have the disjoints or here called the sacroiliac joints there are also a common source of pain that under x-ray guidance we can have access and we can inject them you

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