A nerve block is a targeted injection of local anesthetic — often combined with an anti-inflammatory steroid — placed precisely around the nerves that carry your pain signals. Nerve blocks serve two roles: they help diagnose exactly where pain is coming from (if the block relieves it, we've found the source), and they treat it by calming the irritated nerve for extended relief. Our physicians use image guidance to place every injection safely and accurately.
Most of the anxiety about a nerve block comes from not knowing how the visit runs. Here is the shape of it.
Tell us about any blood thinner well ahead of the appointment. Whether it needs pausing is a decision for the physician who prescribed it, and we coordinate that rather than leaving it to you. Say so too if you are pregnant or might be, if you have an active infection anywhere, if you are diabetic — a steroid can lift blood sugar for a few days — or if you have had a reaction to contrast or local anesthetic before. Eat normally unless we tell you otherwise, and bring your insurance card, a photo ID and a list of your medications.
You are positioned so the target is accessible, the skin is cleaned and numbed, and the needle is placed under imaging guidance so its position is confirmed rather than assumed. That guidance is the difference between treating the structure we identified and treating the neighbourhood around it. The procedure itself is measured in minutes; you are in the building longer than you are on the table.
Whether you need someone to drive you depends on whether any sedation is used, which we confirm when we schedule so it is not a surprise on the day. Plan a quiet rest of the day either way.
Almost everyone asks this, and almost nobody is told anything useful, so here it is in the order you will experience it.
The first thing is a cold wipe of antiseptic. Then a small sting as the skin and the tissue just under it are numbed with local anesthetic — that stings the way a dental injection stings, for a few seconds, and it is the sharpest part of the whole appointment. Once that has taken, the needle that does the actual work goes through numb tissue, and what most people report from that point is pressure rather than pain: a deep, dull push, sometimes a brief ache as the medication goes in.
Some blocks produce a momentary jolt or a zing down the limb when the needle is near the nerve. That is startling rather than damaging, it lasts a second, and it is worth telling your physician the instant it happens so the needle can be repositioned.
The part people underestimate is not the pain. It is holding still, face down or on your side, for several minutes while the imaging is lined up. If you know that lying in one position is difficult for you — a bad hip, a breathing problem, claustrophobia in a scanner — say so when the appointment is booked, not on the table. It is easy to plan around in advance and awkward to fix mid-procedure.
Afterwards the area is usually numb for a few hours, which is the local anesthetic and not the long-term effect. Soreness where the needle went in is normal for a day or two and ice helps.
How you feel in the first hours matters more here than with most procedures. If the block is diagnostic, we are asking a specific question — did the pain go away while the anesthetic was working? — so pay attention to that window and tell us honestly, including if the answer is no.
Ice the site if it is sore. Keep moving, but skip anything strenuous for a day or two unless you have been told otherwise. Write down what changes and when — how much the pain drops, for how long, and what you could do that you could not before. That record is what tells us whether to repeat, adjust or change course, and it is more useful than trying to remember at the next visit.
A block is a step in a sequence, not the end of one. A diagnostic block that works points to the structure worth treating and often leads to radiofrequency ablation; a therapeutic block opens a window for Physical Therapy to do the work that lasts.
That is the practical reason everything sits in one building at Mountain View Pain Center. The physician who performed the procedure and the therapist working on the movement problem underneath it read the same chart, so the plan adjusts on what actually happened rather than on what someone was told at a follow-up weeks later.
A nerve block is aimed at a specific nerve or group of nerves. It works when the pain has a clear anatomical address. Diffuse pain with no consistent pattern, pain that moves around, and pain that does not match any nerve's territory are all poor candidates, and doing a block anyway produces an ambiguous result that helps nobody.
Blocks are deferred where there is an infection at or near the intended site, where anticoagulation has not been reviewed, in pregnancy where imaging guidance is needed, and where there is a known allergy to local anesthetic. Poorly controlled diabetes changes the conversation when steroid is included in the injection.
One thing worth understanding before you agree to a block: some are diagnostic as much as therapeutic. A short-acting block that takes the pain away for a few hours and then lets it return has told us something important, even though it has not fixed anything. If that is the purpose, we will say so beforehand, so a temporary result does not read as a failure.
The usual experience is soreness at the site for a day or two, and numbness or weakness in the area the nerve supplies until the local anesthetic wears off. That temporary weakness is expected — it is the block working — but it means planning how you will get home and not driving until it has resolved.
Common and temporary: bruising, a flare of the original pain before any steroid takes effect, facial flushing, and a rise in blood sugar in people with diabetes.
Less common: bleeding, infection at the site, and an unintended spread of anesthetic to a neighboring nerve producing more numbness or weakness than intended, which wears off. Rarely, injury to the nerve itself, and for blocks performed near the chest wall, a small risk of puncturing the lung lining — which is why those are done under imaging.
Call us for fever, for numbness or weakness that has not resolved as expected, for spreading redness at the site, or for shortness of breath after a block in the chest or upper back.
A nerve block is performed in office at these Mountain View Pain Center clinics: Northglenn, InterQuest in north Colorado Springs, Mesa, and Westgate in Glendale. A nerve block is also performed at Lowry on specific days. Fluoroscopic guidance is available at Westgate and Mesa.
Every other clinic coordinates the procedure to one of those. That is worth stating plainly rather than leaving you to work it out: you can start at the clinic nearest you, be evaluated there, and have the procedure itself scheduled at the site equipped for it, without repeating the workup or starting again with a new team. Your notes, imaging and plan travel with you.
If you are not sure which clinic is nearest, the clinic pages list every location in Colorado and Arizona with directions and parking.
A nerve block is billed to medical insurance rather than paid for out of pocket. What varies between plans is not usually whether it is covered but what has to be documented first.
Most plans expect a record of conservative care before an interventional step — some combination of Physical Therapy, Chiropractic, medication and time — and many require prior authorization on top of that. This is the main reason a procedure gets delayed, and it is avoidable: the documentation is built as you go rather than assembled in a hurry at the end.
We are in network with most Medicare Advantage plans; call to confirm yours. Workers' compensation is accepted at every location, in both states, across Pain Management, Physical Therapy, Chiropractic and Acupuncture, and auto injury claims are handled through med-pay or a lien we hold directly. Referrals are not required for any of it.
Your benefits are checked in advance — before the visit, not after. Nobody should find out what something costs afterwards. See insurance for the plans each state's clinics bill directly, and ask about any plan that is not listed.
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.
Anesthetic-only blocks: hours to days — the information is the point. Blocks with steroid: often weeks to months of relief.
Very, when image-guided. Common minor effects: soreness, temporary numbness or weakness in the nerve's territory that resolves as the anesthetic wears off.
That's a useful result — it rules out that source, and we keep hunting rather than repeating what didn't work.
No. You can request an evaluation directly in Colorado or Arizona, and whether a block is the right next step is decided at that visit.
Generally yes when medically indicated, though some plans want prior authorization. We check your benefits beforehand.
Write down the pain score before the block and then hourly for the rest of the day. Vague recollection at the follow-up is the most common reason a useful result gets thrown away.
There can be temporary numbness or heaviness in the area the nerve supplies while the anesthetic is active. It wears off within hours.
It can be either. A diagnostic block is used to confirm that a specific nerve is the source of the pain, and the answer decides what comes next. A therapeutic block is aimed at relief. The physician says which one is being done before it happens.
The sharpest part is the small sting of the local anesthetic used to numb the skin, which lasts a few seconds. After that most people feel pressure and a deep dull ache rather than pain, because the needle is passing through numbed tissue. A brief jolt down the limb can happen if the needle is near the nerve — tell your physician straight away if it does, so it can be repositioned. The area is often numb for a few hours afterwards from the local anesthetic, and sore at the injection site for a day or two.
Chronic pain is often blamed on the wrong structure. A diagnostic block is a targeted experiment: numb one specific nerve, and if the pain drops substantially while the anesthetic lasts, that nerve's territory is the source. This is how we confirm facet joint pain before radiofrequency ablation, sort shoulder pain from neck pain, and avoid treating the wrong thing for months.
Some blocks are treatments in their own right, used to break pain cycles and enable rehab:
Occipital nerve blocks for headaches arising at the base of the skull.
Medial branch blocks for facet-driven back and neck pain.
Sympathetic blocks (e.g., stellate ganglion, lumbar sympathetic) for complex regional pain syndrome and certain nerve pain conditions.
Peripheral nerve blocks for focal nerve pain — intercostal, ilioinguinal, lateral femoral cutaneous, and others.
Trigger point injections for stubborn muscle knots that feed the pain cycle.
In-office, image-guided (X-ray or ultrasound depending on the target), 10–20 minutes. You'll track your pain relief over the following hours — for diagnostic blocks, that diary IS the result, so we'll ask you to note percentages honestly. Numbness or relief starts within minutes; steroid effects (when included) build over days.
It is performed in office rather than referred out to a surgical center: nerve block in Denver (Northglenn, and Lowry on specific days), nerve block in Colorado Springs (InterQuest), and nerve block in Phoenix (Mesa and Westgate).
Each page sets out who the procedure is for, what the appointment involves, and how it is billed.
Nerve blocks are performed at our procedure clinics — Northglenn, InterQuest, Mesa and Westgate, and Lowry on specific days — and every MVPC clinic can evaluate you and book it; see the full clinic map, Colorado or Arizona.
