What Are Treatment Options for My Chronic Low Back Pain?

Lower back pain can be rooted in your posture, lifestyle, and spinal health. A proper diagnosis is the first step to finding relief, which is why it’s critical to consult a specialist. With a comprehensive exam, we can determine what treatment will be most effective, including the Intracept® procedure for discovertebral complex pain. 

At The Spine and Sports Center in Sugarland and Houston, Texas, board-certified physiatrist and spine specialist Dr. Benoy Benny can evaluate your chronic low back pain and find solutions that help alleviate your discomfort and improve your daily life. 

Diagnosing lower back pain 

Lower back pain is one of the most common forms of chronic pain, affecting over 600 million people globally with the number growing every year. It’s the leading cause of disability and can rob you of your mobility and quality of life if left untreated. 

Your spine is prone to many problems, and diagnosing lower back pain requires physical examinations, imaging tests, and sometimes a process of elimination. Problems with your lumbar spine typically manifest in one of two ways: mechanical pain caused by friction between bones or radicular pain caused by a pinched or inflamed nerve. 

Many people struggle to find relief even after seeking a second opinion or changing primary care doctors, but consulting a specialist can open doors in your treatment. 

Potential treatment options 

There’s no single treatment for lower back pain, and proper diagnosis is vital to your short-term treatment and long-term health. Alleviating your pain is an objective of treatment, but not the purpose. 

If you’re relatively young and experiencing back pain, it’s important that you determine the cause and do your best to repair the damage and slow down the deterioration. Otherwise, your condition will continue to worsen and you’ll be left with fewer options for pain relief down the line. 

Treatments for lower back pain can vary from physical therapy to injections and surgery. In some cases, you might even benefit from more targeted procedures, such as Intracept. 

Introducing the Intracept procedure

As our anatomical knowledge of the human spine improves, so does our understanding of lower back pain and what causes it. Your vertebrae are cushioned by your spinal discs, which sit between the stacked bones in your spine and absorb shock. Over time, these discs break down and become thinner. 

This deterioration is well understood as a major factor in chronic back pain, but damage to the vertebral endplates can be just as painful. Vertebrogenic back pain refers to inflammation of your basivertebral nerve, which lies within your vertebrae itself. It can be treated using basivertebral nerve ablation or the Intracept procedure. 

This is an ultra minimally invasive treatment that uses a radiofrequency probe to desensitize your nerve until it can no longer send pain signals. Unlike surgery or injections, Intracept can offer long-term results without downtime, implants, or extensive physical therapy. 

To learn more and see if your lower back pain can be treated using nerve ablation, schedule a consultation by calling our location closest to you or booking an appointment online today.