Ease Your Pain with a Sympathetic Block

The sympathetic nervous system is a series of nerves that control involuntary body functions, such as blood flow, heart rate, and digestion. While not normally the source of pain, a variety of conditions, such as the ones as listed below, can cause sympathetic nerves to amplify pain perception and increase pain signals to the brain.

A sympathetic block procedure may be recommended if you suffer from one of these conditions:

• Artery or vein damage (Peripheral Vascular Disease)
• Cancer
• Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, also called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy
• Injury or disease of the chest, abdomen, or pelvic areas
• Nerve damage caused by injury or disease (Neuropathy)
• Phantom Limb Pain

Sympathetic Block Procedure

During the sympathetic block procedure, medication is injected into groups of sympathetic nerves located close to the spine under x-ray guidance. The goal of a sympathetic block is to stop the nerves from transmitting pain signals to the brain.

This procedure takes about 15 to 30 minutes, can be carried out in your doctor’s office or a surgery center, and does not require hospitalization.
It’s impossible to determine in advance how much and what type of pain relief you will experience from a sympathetic block procedure. However, data reveals that patients who get a sympathetic block procedure shortly after the onset of pain report longer-term pain relief than others who wait.

If you receive pain relief from a sympathetic block, your doctor may schedule a series of additional procedures to give you additional relief. Other recommended procedures to further reduce your pain may include radiofrequency ablation or spinal cord stimulation.

At Innovative Pain and Wellness, we treat each patient as we would like to be treated ourselves. When you become our patient, we approach your pain condition from as many different angles as possible so that YOU can lead a pain-free and healthy life!