Stabbing where the pain is Infiltrations can relieve back pain

Back pain often confines sufferers an extreme in their everyday life and work. There are many causes for this, but clarity usually only gives access to a doctor or orthopedist. In herniated discs or bulges in many cases already conservative methods such as physiotherapy or targeted syringe treatment, also called infiltration therapy, cause a rapid relief of the symptoms.

"In doing so, we bring pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory medicines precisely where pain arises, for example into the facet joints or the inter-iliac joint," Dr. Reinhard Schneiderhan, orthopedist from Munich and president of the German Spine League.

Break the vicious circle
Before each treatment, first a detailed conversation and a physical examination will take place, possibly with the help of imaging techniques, with which the doctor clarifies the individual course of the disease, the type and extent of the pain and its cause. Based on this detailed assessment and diagnosis, individual measures can be initiated. In certain indications, infiltration helps to quickly relieve pain, to move as usual and to give up any painful postural pain, which aggravates discomfort.

New therapy for back pain. Image: Microgen - fotolia

"With infiltrations, the vicious circle can break through back pain, restraint, even more back pain quickly and effectively. In many cases, patients are quickly mobilized and we can work on the causes of the pain. This can be done, for example, with physiotherapy or other conservative methods, "explains Dr. med. Reinhard Schneiderhan. Infiltration often forms part of a multimodal pain therapy, which means that patients are also in the treatment of a physiotherapist or psychologist.

Controlled administration of analgesics
Among the most common applications is the so-called periradicular pain therapy, short PRT. Here, the doctor, usually under X-ray or CT control, injected special drugs and painkillers, if necessary, several times in succession, exactly to the painful spot directly to the nerve root. Advantage of this method compared to an ordinary analgesic therapy: It is lower in quantities than in tablets, the drugs administered act faster and, above all, exactly at the affected site.

Even with a herniated disc or a spinal canal narrowing, also called spinal canal stenosis, can be achieved by infiltration improvements of symptoms. Soft tissue shrinks and troubled nerves can calm down. However, this is often not enough: "With physiotherapy and exercise, for example, patients need to work their abdominal and back muscles back in the long term to prevent further back problems," says Dr. med. Schneiderhan.