4 Effective Solutions for Low Back Pain 

Did you know that about 80% of Americans will develop low back pain at some point in their lives? Or that low back pain affects nearly 620 million people around the world and that it’s the leading cause of disability?

If you're reading this, the odds are good that you have some idea about the impact and magnitude of low back pain.

And if you’re looking for solutions for your own back pain, you’ve come to the right place. At Apex Pain Specialists, which caters to patients in the greater Chandler area, including Gilbert, Mesa, and Queen Creek, Arizona, Dr. Naveen Reddy and Dr. Maziar Massrour are board-certified in pain management.

Since back pain is one of the leading drivers of chronic pain, our team has a good deal of experience with low back pain. Here are four great protocols that work extremely well in helping our patients to find much-needed relief.

1. Epidural injections

In many cases of low back pain, degenerative issues, such as spinal stenosis, arthritis, or degenerative disc disease (DDD), lead to pinched nerves, which are what cause the discomfort. A classic example of this is sciatica, which affects between 10% and 40% of adults.

In your lower back, there are 10 pairs of nerve roots that exit your spine in the lumbar and sacral regions, so there’s plenty of opportunity for nerve compression.

When this occurs, a fantastic front-line treatment is epidural injections that quiet the nerves that are actively firing. These injections contain a steroid and a local anesthetic that we direct into the epidural space where the nerve roots are located (we use live X-ray to guide us).

Once we administer the injection, you should experience relief within a few days and this relief can last for weeks, months, and even years for some people.

2. Discseel® procedure

Your spine contains 23 intervertebral discs that can break down with age and wear and tear, especially in areas of your spine that enjoy the most range of motion, such as your lower back. And when they do, it can lead to pain.

We offer a minimally invasive outpatient procedure called Discseel, during which we repair your discs. The first step with Discseel is an annulogram to locate the damage. Once we see where we need to make repairs, we inject a compound of prothrombin and fibrinogen into the torn discs to create a fibrous mesh.

3. Ketamine infusion therapy

All too often, chronic low back pain can take on a life of its own and become a never-ending cycle. This explains why many people suffer from pain long after the underlying issue resolves as the pain messaging becomes entrenched with enough time. And this happens often with low back pain.

If you’ve been dealing with low back pain for some time and you’ve tried every solution imaginable, it might be time to consider breaking the pain cycle through ketamine infusion therapy. Under our close monitoring, we administer a therapeutic dose of ketamine that not only makes quick work of your immediate pain, it promotes healthier neural pathways for better pain and mood regulation.

In other words, ketamine can disrupt the pain signaling and reprogram how your brain processes pain.

4. Spinal cord stimulation

Another innovative way to combat low back pain is through a neuromodulation technique called spinal cord stimulation (SCS). With this approach, we insert electrodes into the area where the nerves are actively firing pain messages, as well as a generator pack.

Using a remote control, you can send electrical impulses through the electrodes that garble the communication between the nerves in your spine and your brain. Using this technique, you can reduce your reliance on medications and find relief from your low back pain.

To see which of these effective treatments might work to relieve your low back pain, please call our Chandler office at 480-820-7246 today to schedule a same-week visit. You can also use our online booking tool to request a consultation.