What Injections Do Doctors Use for Diagnosis and Pain Treatment for Accident Injuries?
Injections of pain relief medication are often used by doctors to provide temporary pain relief and to confirm diagnosis of injuries to the back, neck, and joints. Here are the most common types of injections used to treat injury accident victims:
Sympathetic Block
This type of test is performed for both treatment and diagnosis. A sympathetic block is given to a patient to diagnose nerve damage typically in their lower legs, feet, or ankles. The basic purpose of the sympathetic block is to "block" the nerve communication from the suspected injury to the person's brain. If the sympathetic block is successful, a person will receive pain relief since the injured part of the body temporarily cannot communicate with the individual's brain. This result indicates to the doctor that the person is suffering from nerve damage at the point of the injury. If the block is successful (and, very often, a series of them are performed), the doctor may consider carefully "disconnecting" that nerve such that it will no longer send messages of pain is the person's brain.
Epidural Steroid Injections
Also known as "epidural injections" or "steroid injections", this treatment is a series of injections typically given in a person's neck or lower back in an attempt to relieve pain from a damaged cervical or lumbar disc. Epidural injections can also be given to individuals in the shoulder area, as well as other parts of the body. Epidural injections are very often described as both therapeutic as well as diagnostic. This means that the injection is given to provide relief to the patient as well as potentially diagnose their injury. Most doctors believe that if the patient receives temporary relief for a period of days or even a few weeks from the injection, this means that the injection was most likely given at the source of the injury. In this way, the injection serves as a diagnostic tool to help the doctor identify the area of injury.
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