Lumbar Selective Nerve Root Injections – What Are They and Why Are They Done?
The incidence of having a lumbar herniated disc in the US is 1%, which makes it a very common phenomenon. If the disc herniation is obvious on imaging studies and correlates with the patient’s symptoms of radiculopathy and sciatica, the options for treatment are clear. Physical therapy, epidural injections, pain medication, spinal decompression, essentially anything non-operative and if after 6-8 weeks the pain persists the option for surgery is thrown into the mix. What happens when a patient has sciatica that does not correlate with significant findings on imaging studies? For instance, the patient has symptoms in the right lower extremity consistent with an L5 radiculopathy, but there’s no obvious compression on the right side at L5 when looking at the MRI. That’s when a Lumbar Selective Nerve Root Block can help. The doctor thinks sciatica is coming from pathology at the level of the nerve root but wants to both 1) Confirm the suspicions and 2) Provide pain relief for the patient.
