Struggling With Chronic Back Pain? When to Consider Minimally Invasive Solutions

No one looks forward to back pain. It’s an occasional issue for virtually everyone. When it’s persistent, back pain affects mobility, sleep, and your ability to work or care for yourself, seriously degrading your quality of life. 

Chronic back pain rarely requires surgery. Instead, we rely on less aggressive methods that treat both symptoms and causes. In stubborn cases, the team at  360 Orthopedics often recommends minimally invasive treatment techniques, approaches that occupy the middle ground between conservative care and surgical solutions. 

Let’s examine minimally invasive treatments for chronic back pain and the indicators that it’s time to consider them. Contact our office to learn more. 

When to consider minimally invasive solutions

Your pain tolerance is perhaps unique. You may tolerate levels of discomfort that might sideline others, so there’s never a straightforward answer to when to seek treatment. The real problem may be delaying treatment too long. 

It’s time to up the urgency when you encounter situations like: 

• Previously effective conservative care is no longer enough to manage pain
• Activity modification or physical therapy proves ineffective
• Back pain symptoms increasingly interfere with your ability to perform tasks or enjoy life
• Pain becomes continuous or recurs often
• Diagnosis pinpoints a cause for your symptoms

It’s important to note that many modalities are used for back pain. Escalating to minimally invasive procedures isn’t necessarily the next step for every situation. 

Generally, we exhaust all appropriate conservative measures before pursuing more intensive treatments. When we turn to minimally invasive alternatives, these typically include the following: 

Targeted injections

Used both as a diagnostic procedure and a pain treatment, targeted injections for chronic back pain include things like epidural corticosteroid injections, facet joint injections, and nerve root blocks. 

These work best when the areas creating pain are known or suspected. An anesthetic injection can confirm we’ve identified the right nerve source; it can provide relief of an intermediate duration, or, in the case of corticosteroids, it may provide months of pain-free living through powerful anti-inflammatory effects. 

Radiofrequency ablation (RFA)

Generating small areas of heated tissue, radiofrequency ablation can disrupt the transmission of pain signals from target nerves. It’s an approach that works well in many cases of facet-joint-related back pain.

Often, a targeted nerve block serves as a stepping stone to RFA treatment by positively identifying the nerve responsible for your chronic pain. This is usually an accurate indicator that RFA will successfully moderate your pain. 

Spinal disc procedures

In some cases, degenerated or herniated discs can be candidates for minimally invasive surgery. Much depends on the type of problem, its location, and its severity. While not all issues of this nature can be treated this way, it’s a solution we will consider. 

The benefits of minimally invasive approaches are many. Your risk of infection drops dramatically, and your recovery time is often much shorter than with traditional surgery. You’re likely looking at an outpatient procedure lasting a few hours rather than a hospital stay, with less discomfort from the treatment. 

Find out more by visiting our nearest location in Sarasota, Venice, or Lakewood Ranch, Florida. Call the 360 Orthopedics office of your choice to schedule a consultation today.