Ask where the pain goes. If it stays across the low back or between the shoulder blades, an epidural injection is usually not the answer. If it travels below the knee or past the elbow, and especially if it comes with pins and needles or a patch of numbness, a nerve root is likely the source and this is the step designed for it.
Radiating pain of that kind has a shape. People describe a line rather than a region, and they can often draw it with one finger. That line is the map of a single root, and the injection is placed to reach it.
Of the Colorado Springs clinics — Academy on North Academy Boulevard, InterQuest off the InterQuest Parkway exit, and Tenderfoot in the south — the procedure clinic is InterQuest, at 10807 New Allegiance Drive.
That puts it at the northern end of the city, an easy run down from Monument and Gleneagle and a straight shot up I-25 from Tenderfoot. If you have been seen at Academy or Tenderfoot, nothing about your care restarts: the assessment, the injection and the follow-up are all in one record.
A well-placed injection does two jobs at once. It settles the inflammation, and it tests the theory. If pain that has bothered you for months drops sharply after the root is treated, that root was the source, and everything afterwards is built on a confirmed answer instead of a guess.
The reverse is just as useful. When nothing changes, the plan stops chasing the disc and looks harder at the joints, the hip, or the way you are loading the spine at work. Being wrong quickly is better than being vaguely right for a year.
Eat normally unless told otherwise, and bring a list of your medications, particularly any blood thinner, because that changes the timing. Wear something you can lie face down in comfortably.
Expect the numbing agent to wear off within hours and the steroid to take a few days. A sore spot at the injection site for a day or two is ordinary. What is not ordinary is fever, new weakness, or pain sharply worse than before, and those are reasons to call rather than wait for the follow-up.
Keep a rough note of what the pain does over that first week. It is the single most useful thing you can bring to the next appointment.
In Colorado we accept most major commercial plans and are in network with most Medicare Advantage plans. Coverage is verified ahead of time rather than discovered afterwards.
Where a car crash or a workplace injury is behind the pain, billing runs through the auto policy, an attorney lien, or the workers compensation carrier as appropriate. You do not need a referral to be assessed, and there is usually an appointment within the same week.
More detail on epidural steroid injection generally, and on Pain Management in Colorado Springs.
Other Colorado Springs pages by complaint: sciatica treatment in Colorado Springs, herniated disc treatment in Colorado Springs, low back pain treatment in Colorado Springs, neck pain treatment in Colorado Springs, knee pain treatment in Colorado Springs and neuropathy treatment in Colorado Springs. And by procedure: radiofrequency ablation in Colorado Springs, spinal cord stimulator in Colorado Springs, kyphoplasty in Colorado Springs (at our surgery center in Denver) and nerve block in Colorado Springs.
Every clinic below has Chiropractic, Physical Therapy, Acupuncture and Pain Management on one chart, so care can move between them without a new referral.
Downtown out through the north, west, south and east suburbs.
Academy, InterQuest and Tenderfoot cover the north, central and south of the city.
Harmony in Fort Collins and our Greeley clinic serve Larimer and Weld counties.
Across the Valley, from the West Valley through Phoenix to the East Valley.
Assessment can happen at Academy, InterQuest or Tenderfoot. The injection itself is done at InterQuest on New Allegiance Drive.
Give it about a week. Local anesthetic can make the first afternoon feel excellent and that is not the result being measured.
Used occasionally and spaced sensibly, it is well tolerated. The spacing exists precisely because repeated steroid has costs, which is why the number is decided case by case.
Possibly, and that is a conversation with the prescribing physician as well as with us. Tell us at booking rather than on the day.
The same principle applies higher up, and a cervical injection is placed on the same reasoning when arm symptoms point to a root.
No. It calms the reaction around the root. Discs settle on their own timetable, and the injection buys you the months in which that happens without the pain running your life.
Most people do. Heavy lifting is worth deferring for a couple of days, and the physician will give you a clearer answer based on what you actually do.
We are in network with most Medicare Advantage plans in Colorado. Call and we will confirm your specific plan before the appointment.
Epidural Steroid Injection is performed in office at our InterQuest clinic. No referral is needed to be evaluated, and appointments are usually available within the same week.
