People with chronic pain often find themselves unable to carry out even the most fundamental daily activities, such as sitting or tidying up their homes. It is time to discuss a stellate ganglion block with the team at Trinity Surgery Center if you consistently experience neck, head, arms, hands or upper chest pain.
Even when treatments or medications are ineffective, a nerve block can instantly reduce your discomfort. By combining an anesthetic with steroid drugs, we can provide patients with a level of pain alleviation that is unattainable with more standard approaches.
What is the Stellate Ganglion?
A collection of spinal nerves is referred to as a ganglion. Every vertebra in your spine has one of these clusters where several nerves exit and re-enter the spinal cord. The stellate ganglion, located between the seventh and sixth cervical vertebrae, is a cluster of sympathetic nerves.
These nerves extend from your face to the brachial plexus in your shoulder, a network of nerves responsible for transmitting motor and sensory signals to the arms and hands. We can alleviate discomfort in your face, head, arms and chest by properly targeting the stellate ganglion.
How a Stellate Ganglion Block Works
An anesthetic is injected into the ganglion in a procedure known as a stellate ganglion block. The anesthetic blocks all nerve signals, including those that convey pain. Steroid injections may also be used to alleviate nerve inflammation. The anesthetic immediately relieves pain. While steroids take longer to start working, they frequently produce long-lasting effects once the inflammation has subsided. As a result, you no longer feel pain in various parts of your body.
You are given a sedative to help you relax during your procedure, and we use a topical anesthetic to numb the injection site. Then, we use a fluoroscope, an X-ray machine, to see your vertebrae and the needle as we maneuver it into place.
Next, we carefully place the needle into the targeted stellate ganglion while you are on your back and administer a dye. Once we have confirmed that the needle is in the right place by looking at the dye through the fluoroscope, the medications are injected.
What Conditions are Treated with a Stellate Ganglion Block?
Pain in the neck, head, upper chest, arms and hands can be relieved by a stellate ganglion block. A pinched or injured spinal nerve is often the root cause of neck pain.
A stellate ganglion block also inhibits nerve signals from a large portion of your upper body. Therefore, this treatment may successfully reduce pain brought on by conditions like:
- Complex regional pain syndrome (affecting the upper limbs)
- Post-herpetic neuralgia
- Herpes zoster infection (shingles)
- Phantom limb pain
- Scleroderma
- Migraine headaches
- Cluster headaches
- Upper extremity vascular disease
- Angina (chest pain that does not respond to other treatments)
- Chronic post-surgical pain
The constant suffering you have been experiencing is unnecessary. Trinity Surgery Center provides specialized treatments, such as a stellate ganglion block, to relieve pain by targeting the nerves that convey pain signals. If you are in pain and have questions regarding our services, please contact Trinity Surgery Center today to book an appointment.
Posted on Behalf of Trinity Surgery Center
