Back pain is one of the most common complaints of all: most people experience it at least once in their lives. In the majority of cases, no single cause can be found. Then movement, physiotherapy and patience help most, and injections are not the first option.
It is different when the pain has an identifiable source. An irritated nerve root, for example from a slipped disc or a narrowed spinal canal, sends pain down the leg. The small joints of the spine, also known as facet joints, tend to cause deep-seated low back pain that gets worse after standing for a long time, comes with stiffness in the morning and improves when bending forward.
Interventional pain therapy means that a fine needle delivers the medication precisely to this spot under X-ray, CT or ultrasound guidance. It is frequently a local anaesthetic, often combined with an anti-inflammatory agent intended to reduce irritation and swelling at the nerve. At the facet joints, the fine pain fibres can also be deactivated with heat – specialists call this radiofrequency denervation.
The injection can also help with diagnosis: if the pain disappears after a small test dose at a particular joint or nerve, this points to that source. For chronic pain lasting longer than three months, it is one building block alongside movement, physiotherapy and psychological support – not a replacement for them.