Monmouth Pain and Rehabilitation offers Sympathetic Nerve Blocks to relieve pain and ensure correct diagnoses. As part of a multi-disciplinary program of rehabilitation and pain management, Sympathetic Nerve Blocks are used to ‘block’ the sympathetic nerve system in the lower back or neck by injecting a numbing agent in those areas. For many patients, this provides pain relief in order to help the body heal through healthy rehabilitation practices (such as physical therapy, chiropractic, or acupuncture) without surgery or drugs.
Sympathetic Nerve Blocks
The basic objective of Sympathetic Nerve Blocks is to interrupt the ability of the nerves to send pain signals to the brain. This is accomplished with the injection of an anesthetic medication around the sympathetic nerves in the neck or lower back. A nerve block is a fairly common procedure; anyone who has visited the dentist and received Novocaine has experienced a nerve block.
When the sympathetic nervous system is disabled, pain may be reduced or completely eliminated. In many cases, this leads to a diagnosis of sympathetically mediated pain. From there, more targeted and therefore increasingly successful programs of pain management and rehabilitation can begin.
In addition to more accurate diagnoses, this anesthetic injection may allow for long-lasting pain relief. The overall goal when using Sympathetic Nerve Blocks for pain management is to regulate the functioning of the sympathetic nervous system in the affected area.
The sympathetic nerves are responsible for breathing, blood pressure, heart rate, sweating, digestion, and glandular functions. In many cases, a malfunction of the sympathetic nerves is directly related to chronic pain. For example, disorder in the sympathetic nerves found near the lower neck may lead to pain in the hands, arms, and face. The lumbar sympathetic nerves (located in front of the spine on the lower back) can cause pain in the feet, legs, and lower back.
