WHAT IS THE STELLATE GANGLION?
The sympathetic nervous system is a primitive alternative nervous system that exists in our bodies and usually is outside our conscious control. It controls the amount of blood going through the arteries, the heart rate, breathing rate, etc. The stellate ganglion is a main switching station for the sympathetic nervous system in the neck and controls the blood flow and certain pain sensors in the face, neck, arm, hand, and upper chest. In some diseases, the nerve signals going through this switching station are overactive and can be interrupted by injection of a local anesthetic into this ganglion. FOR WHAT CONDITIONS IS THE STELLATE GANGLION BLOCK (SGB) USED? Headaches, recurring facial pain, reflex sympathetic dystrophy, some types of cancer pain, and sympathetically mediated diseases, excessive sweating. The injections may be used as a diagnostic injection or in a series as therapeutic injections. However, if more than 3 injections are needed, it is prudent to consider other technolo
