Living with chronic pain can greatly interfere with your ability to live an ordinary life. This is especially true if you have debilitating back pain that affects your ability to move around. However, there are treatment options available for people who find themselves in these positions. You may never consider visiting a neurosurgeon for back pain, but these skilled professionals can be some of the best doctors to visit for the condition. Take a look at some of the ways a neurosurgeon can help with managing back pain.
Some neurosurgeons specialize in spinal surgery.
It is not uncommon for neurosurgeons to take their expertise a bit further by specializing in the spine and spinal regions in particular. Therefore, they have the knowledge it takes to look at your spine and make proper diagnoses and to perform neurosurgery if needed. Spinal surgery is an intense procedure, and it should only be handled by doctors who are familiar with the nerves of the spine and the spinal cord because these areas of the body can be so tedious to work around. Nevertheless, spinal surgeons with a background in neurology are aptly skilled to perform these procedures because of their training and experience.
The neurosurgeon can do testing to look for nerve injuries in the spine.
Neurosurgeons are most commonly associated with matters of the brain, but in reality, the brain and the spine are two interconnected things that work together. The precise training on the nervous system means the neurosurgeon can do in-depth examinations of the nerves that surround the spine. These tests can pinpoint areas of concern that could be making your experience with pain far worse than what it would otherwise be. Surgery to alleviate pressure on the surrounding nerves of the spine can be a common thing among neurosurgeons.
Your care can include pain medications as needed.
Even though most neurosurgeons do not see patients long term, they can offer you some relief while you are under their care. These physicians are qualified to prescribe pain medications and anti-inflammatory agents to patients while they are under their treatment plan. Therefore, if you are currently seeing a medication-only pain specialist, you can typically have the neurosurgeon handle your pain management with medications while you are seeing them or waiting to have a surgical procedure done. Neurosurgeons may also supply things like steroidal injections to help alleviate some of your pain.
