Home » Knowledge Center » Pain Management » Selective Nerve Block

Selective Nerve Block

A selective nerve root block is performed both as a treatment for a pinched nerve and/or as a diagnostic test to determine if a particular nerve is the source of pain. Similar to the transforaminal epidural, the needle and medication are placed directly on the exiting spinal nerve.

Often a neurogram is perform by injecting a contrast dye into the nerve sheath to further image and identify the nerve. If surgery is being considered for the treatment of foraminal stenosis or a foraminal disc herniation, the selective nerve block can be invaluable as a predictor of the outcome of that operation.

If the pain can be reproduced, and then taken away with the block, the patient should have a good to excellent result from decompression surgery involving that particular nerve. Often, more than one selective nerve block may be performed if the patient has symptoms of multi-nerve involvement.

Selective Nerve Block can treat the following conditions:

Herniated Intervertebral Disc
Spondylolisthesis
Spinal Stenosis