Articles: low-back-pain.
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Diagnostic nerve blocks: The popularity of neural blockade as a diagnostic tool in painful conditions, especially in the spine, is due to features like the unspecific character of spinal pain, the irrelevance of radiological findings and the purely subjective character of pain. It is said that apart from specific causes of pain and clear radicular involvement with obvious neurological deficits and corresponding findings of a prolapsed disc in MRI or CT pictures, a diagnosis of the anatomical cause of the pain can only be established if invasive tests are used [5]. These include zygapophyseal joint blocks, sacroiliacal joint blocks, disc stimulation and nerve root blocks. ⋯ In our hands the injection technique can be much improved by fluoroscopic guidance of the needle, with a prone position of the patient, and lateral injection at the relevant level and with a small volume (1-2 ml) and low dose of corticosteroid (20 mg triamcinolone in the case of a monoradicular pain, for example). In the case of epidural adhesions in postoperative radicular pain [50], the study of Heafner showed that the additional effect of hyaloronidase and hypertonic saline to steroids was minimal. In our hands there was no effect in chronic radicular pain 3 months after the injection.
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The central and lateral lumbar canals constitute complex osteofibrous neurovascular tunnels, allowing movement and deformation of the spine without loss of their main configuration. Intervertebral discs play an important role in determining their configuration. Disc degeneration may alter or even threat the functional anatomical relationships between successive adjacent "juncturae" of the vertebral column. ⋯ The sympathetic nerve plexus inside the anterior longitudinal ligament and the SNVs provide a network of nerve fibers around the vertebral bodies and intervertebral discs. These pathways explain the sympathetic component of the innervation of a number of spinal structures. The dorsal ramus innervates the facet joints at the corresponding level and one below, before it gives off muscular and cutaneous branches.
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Surgery in acute and/or chronic low back pain is still a matter of intensive and controversial discussions. A vast number of minimally invasive or so called semi-invasive procedures have been published in the last 3 decades, but evidence-based data on efficacy and benefit of most of these techniques are still lacking. However, empirical data suggest good or at least satisfactory clinical results for a limited number of procedures if they are applied under restrictive indication criteria. ⋯ In general a restrictive indication for surgery must be recommended especially for spinal fusion procedures. Non-fusion techniques such as intradiscal electro thermal therapy or spine arthroplasty with replacement of nucleus pulposus or total disc show promising early results; however, little is known about the long-term effect. It should be a principle to apply surgery in the least invasive way.
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The present article concentrates on mechanisms that lead to the excitation of nociceptors in soft tissues and nociceptive neurones in the spinal dorsal horn. These mechanisms may contribute to the so-called unspecific low back pain. Properties of nociceptors in soft tissues: A nociceptive ending in soft tissue contains a multitude of receptor molecules in its membrane. ⋯ These data show that structural changes appear quite early in the development of a painful disorder. A novel hypothesis for the development of chronic pain states that a strong nociceptive input to the spinal cord leads to cell death predominantly in inhibitory interneurones. Most of these interneurones are assumed to be tonically active; when their number decreases, the nociceptive neurones are chronically disinhibited and elicit continuous pain also in the absence of a noxious stimulus.
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In the last 50 years conventional treatments have not been able to slow down the expanding chronic low back pain problem. However, nowadays health care has changed according to a broad biopsychosocial model of health, the positive effect of activity on health and healing, emphasis on function rather than pain or impairment, and reliance upon clinical evidence. In search for new solutions "functional restoration" (FR) programs have been developed. ⋯ The patients' efficacy expectations are the most potent determinants of change in the training process. Exacerbation of pain is not taken as a failure of the therapeutic concept, but as a challenge to self-management. However, the important principle in managing chronic low back pain is "treating patients rather than spines."