Degenerative disc disease is a problem that affects millions of Americans. In the lumbar spine, there are discs at every level of the spine, and they act as a protective shock absorber and allow the disk to have an unbelievable range of motion.

As an individual ages, the disc begins to lose water which normally comprises 80% of the disk space. Because of this, a person may end up having severe low back pain as a result of the damage.

When a person reaches the age of 40, there is over a 40% chance that there will be significant degenerative disc disease. Most individuals have no back pain due to degenerative disc disease. When it does occur and is debilitating, do steroid injections work?

Degenerative Disc Disease

There are different types of steroid injections to treat degenerative disc disease. The FiRST is steroids being injected directly into the disk space. These have some limited research to back up their effectiveness. There was a study in a 2004 issue of SPINE showing that there is some benefits of injecting steroids into the disc for disc degeneration. Some pain management doctors in Arizona utilize these injections routinely, whereas others do not feel they have a place in the management of degenerative disc disease.

Call (602) 507-6550 for help with your back pain today.

Additional types of steroid injections utilized for DDD are epidural steroid injections. With significant degenerative disc disease, there may be some bulging of discs and tearing of the outer part of the disk and irritation of the nerves that are surrounding the area. This can cause sciatica and pain down a person’s legs and also back pain itself. It may directly touch nerves or it may cause a chemical irritation which both lead to an inflamed nerve root.

An epidural injection can help treat the area of the bulge or tear and relieve some of the back pain and leg pain associated with the degenerative disc problem.

Disc Degeneration with Bulging pinching nerve

An additional type of steroid injection performed by pain management doctors in Arizona is facet injections. Due to the degeneration of the disk, a person may start to have abnormal spinal motion which can lead to arthritis in the joints in the back of the spine which are called facet joints. Because of this, a person may have additional back pain associated with that joint problem. So an injection of steroids into facet joints can help relieve a significant amount of the back pain.

Between the epidural injections and facet injections, it may be possible for a pain doctor to relieve over half of an individual’s pain that way. A subsequent radiofrequency ablation procedure may help substantially as well.

Additional treatments with physical therapy, chiropractic treatment, spinal decompression therapy, and medication management may be able to relieve over 80 to 90% of a persons pain.

Arizona Pain Specialists offers comprehensive pain management treatment for lumbar degenerative disc disease. By utilizing individualized treatments consisting of those mentioned here, they’re able to help avoid surgery in over 95% of patients with degenerative disc disease.

If you or a loved one is suffering from low back pain, degenerative disc disease may be the culprit. Call 602-507-6550 to get help today from the best in the business, Arizona Pain Specialists. They have clinics throughout the Valley, including a pain clinic Chandler AZ, and accept all major medical insurance along with personal injury, workers compensation, Medicaid plans, and Self Pay.