Radicular Pain – Ridiculous?

You may have heard your doctor refer to radicular pain.

What is it? Simply put, radicular pain, or radiculitis, is pain that radiates from your lower back into the legs, or from the neck into the arms, along nerves due to inflammation or irritation. This irritation can come on slowly through normal “wear and tear,” or it can come on suddenly via trauma. Many times, a disk in the cervical (neck) spine or the lumbar (low back) spine, will bulge and begin to compress against a nerve root, or roots, exiting the spinal cord. This compression causes irritation to the nerve resulting in what is commonly referred to as a “pinched nerve.” If left untreated, this can result in damage to the nerve, and resultant weakness to the extremity may occur.

When this radicular pain does occur, your doctor will typically order an MRI to determine the extent and location of this irritation. Several treatment options are available to treat this radicular pain.

If symptoms are mild, physical therapy can sometimes benefit the patient. Through the building up and strengthening of core muscles greater stability of the spine can be achieved, thus requiring spinal disks to bear less of the weight. Epidural injections are available when pain tends to be milder to moderate in nature. An injection is administered, targeting the area of the bulging disk, and the area is bathed with a potent anti-inflammatory medication which can shrink the bulging disk, taking pressure off the nerve and decreasing the pain. If symptoms are more moderate to severe, a LAND procedure (Laser-Assisted Neural Decompression) may be an option. With this minimally invasive procedure, some disk material can be removed, and the remaining disk material is heated via laser. This causes the disk material to shrink, again taking pressure off the exiting nerves.

At Advanced Spine and Pain, we have a number of effective and viable treatment options available for radicular pain. If you happen to be one of those individuals living with radicular pain, doing nothing would be just plain ridiculous. Call ASAP today for your consultation.