Myofascial pain syndrome (MPS) is a common illness, characterised by acute or chronic focal pain, muscle stiffness and fatigue. The pathophysiology of MPS remains unclear. Previous preliminary studies have demonstrated therapeutic efficacy of the muscle relaxant botulinum toxin type A (BTX-A) in the treatment of MPS. A single-centre, randomised trial compared the effects of BTX-A with the stero...

Thoracic back pain caused by osteoarthritis of a single costovertebral joint is a poorly recognised condition. We report a series of five patients who were successfully treated by resection arthroplasty of this joint. Each had received a preliminary image-guided injection of local anaesthetic and steroid into the joint to confirm it as the source of pain. The surgical technique is described. Th...

BACKGROUND Lumbar facet joints have been implicated as the source of chronic pain in 15% to 45% of patients with chronic low back pain. Various therapeutic techniques including intraarticular injections, medial branch blocks, and radiofrequency neurotomy of lumbar facet joint nerves have been described in the alleviation of chronic low back pain of facet joint origin. OBJECTIVE The study was ...

abstract introduction : chronic radicular pain is often treated by epidural steroid infiltration (esi). in 2014, food and drug administration (fda) issued a letter warning that esi may result in rare but serious adverse events, including “loss of vision, stroke, paralysis, and death”. in this retrospective study, we compare retrolaminar paravertebral infiltration (pvi) of a non-steroid-mixture ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Steroid periradicular infiltration is a common nonsurgical sciatic pain treatment of inconsistent efficacy. The purpose of this study was to identify factors for predicting the efficacy or failure of this procedure. METHODS Two hundred twenty-nine patients with lumbar radiculopathy were prospectively followed up at 2 weeks and 1 year after percutaneous periradicular ste...

BACKGROUND Thoracic facet joints have been implicated as the source of chronic pain in the mid back or upper back in 34% to 48% of the patients. Various therapeutic techniques utilized in managing chronic thoracic pain of facet joint origin include intraarticular injections, medial branch blocks, and radiofrequency neurotomy of thoracic facet joint nerves. OBJECTIVE To determine the clinical ...

Epidural steroid injection (ESI) is known to be an effective treatment for neck or radicular pain due to herniated intervertebral disc (HIVD) and spinal stenosis (SS). Although repeat ESI has generally been indicated to provide more pain relief in partial responders after single ESI, there has been little evidence supporting the usefulness of this procedure. The purpose of this study, therefore...

QUESTION I see many children suffering from sore throat and acute pharyngitis. Some adult studies describe faster pain relief when sore throat is treated with steroids. Would a single dose of a steroid, as an anti-inflammatory agent, provide accelerated pain relief for sore throat in children? ANSWER A single dose of oral dexamethasone (0.6 mg/kg, maximum 10 mg) leads to significantly (P < .0...

Shoulder pain is a common complaint in elder population and may cause an important functional disability. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of suprascapular nerve block with those of steroid injection in patients with non-specific shoulder pain. A total of 60 patients with shoulder pain lasting for more than four weeks were included in this study. After 1:1 randomization, patient...

Efficacy Intra-articular corticosteroid injection is quick and simple to carry out and in RCTs it has a large effect size (ES) of 1.27 at 7 days postinjection for pain relief against placebo for knee OA [101]. It produces relatively rapid relief of severe pain within a few hours or days. Although this benefit is relatively short lasting, in RCTs (1–4 weeks), individual patients may derive benef...