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Nerve Pain

Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation & Interventional Spine Specialist located in Talent Oregon, Talent, OR

Nerve Pain

About Nerve Pain

Nerve pain may be mild and appear occasionally, but it’s more likely to turn into a sharp, severe pain, often turning into a debilitating condition. If you have nerve pain, you owe it to yourself to learn about the advanced therapies offered at Somerset Spine & Nerve in Medford, Oregon. Alexis Tracy, DO, has helped many people overcome nerve pain with physical, interventional, and regenerative treatments. Call the office or book a consultation online to learn about your treatment choices for nerve pain.

Nerve Pain Q&A

What is nerve pain?

Healthy nerves carry pain messages from injuries anywhere in your body to your brain, alerting your brain to a problem and causing the sensation of pain.

However, your nerves can also be the source of your pain when they’re irritated, inflamed, or damaged. You may hear several terms related to nerve pain, such as neuralgia, which refers to sharp pain along a nerve, and neuropathy, a general term for nerve damage. 

What causes nerve pain?

Nerve pain has many possible causes, from physical injuries to health conditions that damage the nerve.

The peripheral nerves running from your spine through your body can sustain damage due to high blood sugar (diabetes), kidney disease, infections, vitamin deficiencies, and autoimmune diseases (to name a few).

Nerve pain in your back, neck, arms, legs, and buttocks typically begins when a spine condition pinches or damages the spinal nerves. The most common problems leading to spine-related nerve pain include:

  • Spinal arthritis
  • Herniated discs
  • Degenerative disc disease
  • Spinal stenosis
  • Poor posture
  • Prolonged sitting
  • Traumatic and overuse injuries

 

Overuse injuries develop when repetitive movements damage soft tissues like muscles, ligaments, and nerves.

What symptoms accompany nerve pain?

Injured and pinched nerves frequently cause sudden shooting pain that travels along the nerve. As a result, nerve problems in your neck and back lead to radiating pain in your arms, legs, and buttocks.

You may also experience tingling, numbness, muscle weakness, and sensitivity to touch and temperature in your arms and legs.

How is nerve pain treated?

Medication and physical therapy may relieve mild to moderate nerve pain. However, pinched and damaged nerves are challenging to treat with conventional medicine, causing many people to develop chronic (long-lasting) nerve pain.

When your nerve pain doesn’t improve, it’s time to meet Dr. Tracy at Somerset Spine & Nerve. As a specialist in interventional medicine and physical medicine and rehabilitation, Dr. Tracy offers a wide range of treatments that effectively relieve nerve pain, including:

  • Nerve blocks
  • Joint injections
  • Selective nerve root blocks
  • Kyphoplasty
  • Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections
  • Stem cell injections
  • Epidural steroid injections
  • Radiofrequency ablation
  • Cryoablation

All the procedures in this list are minimally invasive, which means Dr. Tracy performs them using needles or needle-like devices that don’t require an incision. 

Don’t let nerve pain limit your life. Schedule an appointment by calling Somerset Spine & Nerve or requesting an appointment online today.