Nerve Pain Specialist

What is nerve pain?

All pain comes from your nerves. Nerves alert your brain by sending out pain signals when you’re hurt. The damage affects skin, muscles, joints, organs, and other tissues in many cases. But nerve or neuropathic pain comes from a problem with the nerves themselves.

Nerve pain is often shooting or burning, with some people describing it as resembling an electric shock. Depending on which nerves are damaged, you might get other symptoms like numbness, tingling, or weakness.

Why would I get nerve pain?

Injuries including trauma, pinching, or nerve irritation can cause pain. Carpal tunnel syndrome is a typical example of nerve compression in a joint — in this case, the wrist. Pinched or irritated nerves in your spine cause radiculopathy. Sciatica is lumbar (lower back) radiculopathy, causing shooting pain through the pelvis and down one leg.

Many diseases cause nerve pain, including:

• Diabetes (diabetic peripheral neuropathy)
• Cancer
• Multiple sclerosis (MS)
• Shingles (postherpetic neuralgia)
• Guillain-Barré syndrome
• Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease

Treatments like chemotherapy can also cause nerve pain.

Sometimes nerves have abnormalities or flaws that affect how they work. Conditions like trigeminal and occipital neuralgia, which cause head and face pain, are caused by nerve abnormalities. Nerve pain can also be idiopathic, meaning no cause can be identified.

How is nerve pain treated?

Treating nerve pain involves addressing its cause, where that’s possible. Managing diseases like diabetes more effectively reduces nerve damage and pain. If you have carpal tunnel syndrome, you might need to wear a splint at night to reduce the pressure on the median nerve in your wrist. Physical therapy can often help with conditions like sciatica.

Patients often rely on medication to treat nerve pain. Some medicines, like anticonvulsants, help by reducing nerve activity. The Cleaver Medical Group Interventional Pain team uses medication where needed but avoids opioids whenever possible. These drugs are addictive and might not be the best for treating nerve pain.

Instead, patients benefit from advanced treatments like:

Nerve blocks

Nerve blocks are anesthetic injections that numb pain. Your doctor at Cleaver Medical Group Interventional Pain uses specific nerve blocks to match the source of your pain. For example, an intercostal nerve block in your ribs can numb the pain caused by postherpetic neuralgia, a complication of shingles.

Radiofrequency ablation

Radiofrequency ablation uses targeted heat to damage pain nerves.

Neuromodulation

Neuromodulation involves having an implant under your skin. Peripheral nerve stimulation and spinal cord stimulation change the pain signals before they reach your brain. Intrathecal pain pumps deliver a consistent dose of medication directly into your body.

Call Cleaver Medical Group Interventional Pain today or book an appointment online to learn more about advanced nerve pain treatments.