Percutaneous Vertebroplasty
Percutaneous vertebroplasty is a newer technique in which a medical grade cement is injected though a needle into a painful fractured vertebral body. This stabilizes the fracture, allowing most patients to discontinue or significantly decrease analgesics and resume normal activity. Percutaneous cementoplasty with acrylic cement is a procedure aimed at preventing vertebral body collapse and pain in patients with pathologic vertebral bodies. Percutaneous cementoplasty is a promising therapeutic technique for pain control in patients with bone failure. Indications for percutaneous vertebroplasty are symptomatic vertebral angioma, vertebral body tumors, and/ or severe osteoporosis.

Spinal Cord Stimulation
Spinal cord stimulator is an implanted device that sends low levels of electricity directly into the spinal cord to relieve pain. Spinal cord stimulation is used most often after nonsurgical pain treatment options have failed to provide sufficient relief. Spinal stimulators require two procedures to test and implant the device: the trial and the implantation. They can improve overall quality of life and sleep, and reduce the need for pain medicines. It is typically used along with other pain management treatments. Spinal cord stimulation is used most often after nonsurgical pain treatment options have failed to provide sufficient relief. Spinal cord stimulators may be used to treat or manage different types of chronic pain, including: back pain, post-surgical pain, nerve-related pain, and/ or peripheral vascular disease. Spinal cord stimulation can improve overall quality of life and sleep, and reduce the need for pain medicines. It is typically used along with other pain management treatments, including medications, exercise, physical therapy and relaxation methods.

Implantable Drug Delivery System
Targeted drug delivery is a proven, safe, and effective therapy for managing chronic pain. Unlike medications that circulate throughout your body in your bloodstream, targeted drug delivery releases medication directly into the fluid surrounding your spinal cord, which may lead to fewer or more tolerable drug side effects. The pump releases prescribed amounts of pain medication through the catheter directly to the fluid around the spinal cord, in an area called the intrathecal space. The pain medication approved for use in the pump includes morphine sulfate. Many people experience significant improvements in their pain symptoms and quality of life after receiving targeted drug delivery. However, realistic expectations are essential to satisfaction with any pain treatment. Targeted drug delivery cannot eliminate the source of your pain or cure any underlying disease, but it may help you to better manage your pain. Your doctor may recommend a pain pump if you meet some of these criteria: You’ve failed conservative therapies like oral pain medication, physical therapy, and pain-relief injections such as nerve blocks and epidurals. You are dependent on pain medication and are starting to have strong side effects or addiction.

Continuous Catheter Nerve Blocks
A continuous catheter nerve block is a procedure that provides pain relief medication to a specific area of the body. The most common use of the procedure is to help control post-operative pain. However, catheter nerve blocks effectively treat all types of pain, especially chronic pain that is unresponsive to more conservative treatments, such as cancer-induced pain, complex regional pain syndrome, or phantom limb pain. Continuous catheter nerve blocks are an ideal alternative to opioid medications, which have the risk of abuse, dependence, and possible overdose. The nerve block is a way to optimize sensory blocking with minimal residual motor blocking. In addition to helping with pain management following surgery, continuous catheter nerve blocks effectively manage chronic pain. Some of the chronic pain conditions in which they are most often helpful include: back pain, brachial plexus neuropathies, cancer-related pain, complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), herpetic neuralgia, neck pain, neuropathy, peripheral embolism, peripheral vascular disease, phantom limb pain, post-amputation pain, traumatic nerve injuries, and/ or trigeminal neuralgia. The procedure can provide pain management following traumatic fractures, frozen shoulder, and treating abdominal wall pain during pregnancy. It provides extended pain management following surgery, including surgery performed on an outpatient basis.

Epidurolysis
Epidurolysis is an invasive treatment developed by Dr. Gabor Racz for managing back pain, and is also known as Racz Catheterization. Epidurolysis involves guiding a catheter into the epidural space using an endoscopic camera. Medications are then injected using this catheter, including steroids and anesthetic. Because the procedure involves inserting a needle through the skin, pain is managed through intravenous sedation and analgesia, as well as local anesthesia. Epidurolysis is performed to treat a range of conditions causing pain in the back, including: sciatica, back injury, lumbar herniated disc, or epidural scarring caused by bleeding into the epidural space. It is sometimes performed to avoid more invasive treatments, such as spinal surgery.

RACZ Caudal Neurolysis
RACZ Caudal Neurolysis is an injection, generally performed as an outpatient procedure under local anesthesia, relieves low back and leg pain most often caused by scarring from a prior surgery. The procedure is performed with the patient lying face down with a cushion placed under the stomach. RACZ Caudal Neurolysis is a treatment for relieving low back and leg pain. Under local anesthetic, a steroid-anesthetic mix is injected via catheter around painful scarring caused by previous surgeries. The injection helps to alleviate pain by dissolving the scar tissue and bathing the area in medication. RACZ caudal neurolysis is a non-surgical injection treatment for managing lower back pain and leg pain frequently caused by scarring from a previous back surgery. RACZ is done to break up scar tissue that has built up in the epidural space. The scar tissue may be preventing normal nerve root movement and decompressing high-pressure epidural veins.

Minimally Invasive Lumbar Decompression (M.I.L.D.)
The MILD procedure is a safe, effective, FDA-approved, non-surgical procedure that can help patients diagnosed with Lumbar Spinal Stenosis (LSS) stand longer and walk farther with less pain. The MILD procedure is fluoroscopically guided procedure developed as a less destabilizing bone and tissue sparing alternative to more invasive surgical decompression options. The removal of hypertrophied ligamentum flavum tissue during the mild procedure creates spinal canal space, thereby reducing intraspinal pressures, relieving nerve compression and alleviating complaints associated with neurogenic claudication.

Vertiflex
The Vertiflex interspinous spacer is an FDA-approved indirect decompression device that is implanted between the vertebrae to specifically address the symptoms of lumbar spinal stenosis. During the procedure, a small spacer is placed within the vertebrae open without removal of any nearby bone or tissue. Once the small spacer is placed inside the vertebrae, the spacer’s arms will open around the spinous process which will help make proper space for the affected nerves. The spacer will indirectly decompress the spine which will keep pressure off the nerves, relieving leg and back pain. Made of titanium, the Vertiflex interspinous spacer has an anatomic design that provides optimal fit for a patient’s individual anatomy. It acts as an extension blocker that not only relieves pressure on affected nerves, but it’s also a safe and effective alternative to more aggressive surgical options.