Pain physician
-
Sacroiliac joint (SIJ) injections are crucial in the diagnostic toolkit for evaluating SIJ pathology. Recall bias is an important component in patient-reported outcomes that has not been well studied in SIJ injection. ⋯ Patients had favorable pain level responses to their SIJ steroid injection for both actual and recall surveys. Although patients demonstrated poor recall of absolute pain scores at preinjection, 4-hour postinjection, and 24-hour postinjection, they demonstrated robust recall of their net pain score improvement at both 4- and 24-hours postinjection. These findings suggest that there is utility in using patient recollection to describe the magnitude of pain relief following treatment for sacroiliac joint dysfunction.
-
Observational Study
Neuropsychiatric Side Effects After Lumbosacral Epidural Steroid Injections: A Prospective Cohort Study.
The central nervous system contains steroid receptors, particularly in the hypothalamic and limbic systems. These systems are responsible for driving certain emotions in humans, especially stress, anxiety, motivation, energy levels, and mood. Thus, corticosteroids may precipitate patients to experience these emotions. Most existing studies report neuropsychiatric side effects after oral or intravenous corticosteroids rather than epidural. ⋯ This study demonstrates that neuropsychiatric symptoms are rare overall after an ESI, though certain factors may influence patients experiencing these symptoms. Restlessness and irritability were more likely to occur one day after an ESI in those with a psychiatric history. Those who had a 2-level injection were more likely to keep experiencing most symptoms by week one, suggesting a possible correlation between corticosteroid dose and neuropsychiatric symptoms.
-
Primary trigeminal neuralgia (PTN) is a type of chronic neuropathic pain disorder caused by neurovascular compression. Percutaneous balloon compression (PBC) is a widely used method for the treatment of PTN. ⋯ An intraoperative BP of 138.65-153.90 KPa can be maintained for effective PBC treatment without causing serious complications.