Thermal Applications
Thermal or heat modalities have been popular treatments for soft tissue dysfunction and pain management for centuries. Hot baths, infrared lamps, water bottles, moist warm towels, warm compresses, ultrasound, and…
Electrical Stimulation
Historical Perspective Long before the development of modern electricity, “natural electricity” was used for its therapeutic properties of inducing analgesia. In the earliest written description of an electric fish, Aristotle…
Sacroiliac Joint Pain: Procedures for Diagnosis and Treatment
Over the last 2 decades, the sacroiliac joint (SIJ) has increasingly been recognized as an anatomic source of pain that figures in the differential diagnosis of a patient presenting with…
Discography
Theoretical Aspects David G. Vivian, MM, BS, FAFMM Discography is used to determine if an intervertebral disc is the likely source of pain in a person presenting with referred pain thought…
Intradiscal and Peridiscal Therapies for Discogenic and Radicular Pain
Intradiscal therapies are those that involve the placement under imaging guidance of a needle, probe, or similar device into an intervertebral disc with the goal to reduce the patient’s presenting…
Cold (Cryo) Therapy
Superficial physical agents such as cold, heat, light, friction, and pressure have been used in therapy for thousands of years. Cryotherapy, or the use of cold, is restricted to superficial…
Sympathetic Neural Blockade
The sympathetic nervous system contains some of the afferent and efferent neural pathways necessary for generation, perpetuation, or treatment of certain clinical pain states. Sympathetic neural blockade may be useful…
Discogenic Pain, Internal Disc Disruption, and Radicular Pain
Discogenic pain (DP) and internal disc disruption (IDD) imply that the disc is the source of a patient’s spinal pain. As will be discussed further in this chapter, DP is…
Head and Facial Trigeminal Neuralgia
Trigeminal neuralgia is a disease characterized by brief, stereotypical episodes of lancinating pain in the trigeminal nerve distribution on a single side. The vast majority of cases affect either the…
Occipital Neuralgia
Anatomy Occipital neuralgia is one type of cervicogenic headache described as pain in the distribution of the greater and/or lesser occipital nerve(s), associated with posterior scalp dysesthesia and/or hyperalgesia. The…
