The aim of chiropractic and holistic medicine is to align your spine and other bodily structures so that you function optimally and heal your own ailments and pain. If you suffer from chronic pain, however, or from acute, excruciating pain, your nerves may be damaged. 

To give you relief, the expert medical providers and chiropractors at Northview Medical in Cheyenne, Wyoming, may recommend a nerve block.

A simple procedure

A nerve block is an injection that your medical practitioner delivers directly into or near the spinal column or into the damaged nerves themselves. Epidurals are a form of nerve block that doctors use to subdue women’s pain during childbirth. 

However, nerve blocks can resolve or reduce all kinds of pain, including:

• Chronic headaches and migraines
• Arthritis
• Facial neuralgia
• Post-surgical pain
• Lower back pain
• Shoulder and neck pain
• Pelvic and abdominal pain
• Elbow, wrist, and arm pain

If you have severe, acute pain or chronic pain that hasn’t responded to other therapies, we may recommend a nerve block. Nerve blocks halt pain signals and allow your nerves to heal, so that you can find relief or tolerate other kinds of therapies.

Your practitioner may choose a long-acting anesthetic or anti-inflammatory steroid or your nerve block. At Northview Medical, we use fluoroscopy, ultrasound or other imaging techniques to precisely guide the needle to the treatment area.

Quick, long-lasting relief

Everyone responds differently to nerve blocks. Getting a nerve block early, rather than delaying treatment for months or years, is more likely to give relief. Chronic, persistent pain may involve more than damaged nerves.

The nerve block procedure takes only a few minutes. We perform nerve blocks in the convenience of our office, and you don’t have to prepare beforehand. 

After we sterilize the treatment area and apply a numbing solution with simple swabs, we administer the nerve-block injection. In most cases, you feel relief within 15 minutes, and pain relief lasts from days to months, depending on your case.

Works as a stand-alone therapy, or with other approaches

A nerve block or a series of nerve blocks may be the only treatment you need to control your pain. By subduing inflammation and blocking pain signals, the nerve block allows your damaged nerves to heal and regenerate themselves over time.

Depending on the type of pain or injury you suffered, we may recommend other therapies to help you heal. We may also advise chiropractic treatments once the injection-site swelling has subsided, including:

• Spinal decompression
• Chiropractic manipulations
• Massage therapy
• Cold therapy
• Laser therapy
• Electrical stimulation
• Ultrasound therapy
• Rehabilitation therapy

If injured muscles, tendons, ligaments or bones contribute to your pain, we may recommend regenerative medicine, including platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections. The healing PRP serum is created with your own donated blood. You may also benefit from mesenchymal stem cell injections that accelerate healing and tissue remodeling.

Return to your normal activities immediately

You won’t have to suffer any downtime with nerve blocks. While you may be a little sore at the injection sites, you should be able to return to work, home, or the gym directly after your treatment. 

To get fast, long-lasting relief for your acute or chronic pain, book a nerve block consultation by calling our friendly staff or sending us a message here on our website.