What Is Dorsalgia?
What is next after being diagnosed with severe dorsalgia? What is the best treatment option to opt for when your doctor diagnoses you with dorsalgia? Is it better to proceed with surgery or manage the pain through conservative therapy? Keep reading to learn more about dorsalgia, including treatments and therapy options.
What Is Dorsalgia?
For starters, dorsalgia is severe back pain, which could be coming from different parts of the spine. Depending on the specific section of the spine where the pain is coming from, there are six types of dorsalgia. These are:
- Cervical
- Cervicothoracic
- Thoracic
- Thoracolumbar
- Lumbar
- Lumbosacral
The seriousness of the dorsalgia is dependent on the area of the spine it is affecting and the probable cause of the pain. To accurately determine the cause of the pain, you need a proper, accurate diagnosis, and we can do that for you here at Royal Spine Surgery.
Best Treatment for Dorsalgia
There are two treatment options for dorsalgia: conservative therapy and surgical treatment. A doctor pegs the choice of treatment for dorsalgia on the diagnosis and etiology. Etiology is the determining of the cause of a given condition and its severity.
Before settling on a specific treatment option, a good doctor will carefully analyze the results from the diagnosis, use etiology to determine the probable causes and talk to the patient about what suits them best.
Here is a look at the two treatment options for dorsalgia and what they entail here at Royal Spine Surgery:
Conservative Therapy for Dorsalgia
A doctor elects to use conservative therapy to treat dorsalgia if the conditions are not very severe, and it is in its initial stages. The treatment involves the use of over the counter pain killers, physical therapy, chiropractic therapy, massage therapy and pain management interventions for possible injections.
Pain management injections might be considered if other forms of conservative therapies are not suppressing the conditions causing the pain. The doctor will inject anti-inflammatory drugs into the affected area and see if it will help treat the condition. Such injections can also help establishing and confirming a suspected diagnosis and the cause of pain.
If these conservative measures are not working, then the doctor will have to opt for treatment option number two.
Surgical Treatment for Dorsalgia
A doctor chooses to use surgery to treat dorsalgia if, after close examination of the diagnosis report, he/she determines that the condition behind the pain is severe and needs surgery to rectify the condition. Surgery also comes into the picture if therapy is not working, and the condition is worsening.
The type of surgery depends on the cause of dorsalgia. There are different types of dorsalgia surgeries, such as microdiscectomy to treat herniation of the discs, electrical stimulation to block pain signals from reaching the brain, spinal fusion to fuse two discs to relieve pain, and artificial disc replacement used to replace the affected disc with an artificial disc.
Here at Royal Spine Surgery, we focus on an integrated approach when treating dorsalgia and will always opt for the treatment option we deem the best for your condition. We try as much as possible to avoid invasive surgeries and have invested in modern technology to make our work easy and more effective. Give us a call today and we will relieve you from the shackles of dorsalgia.