Swelling in your spine can cause serious back pain. Steroid injections into the cervical (neck), thoracic (middle back), or lumbar (lower back) region of your spine can reduce swelling and provide long-term pain relief. These injections deliver medicine to the area around the spinal cord.

The University of Miami Health System interventional radiologists are experts in performing epidural steroid injections. They use advanced imaging technology to deliver medicine to the area of your spine that’s causing pain.

Who is a Candidate?

Your doctor may recommend epidural steroid injections if you have serious back pain that doesn’t respond to other treatments like medicine or physical therapy.

What to Expect

Your interventional radiologist may tell you not to eat or drink before this procedure. You may not need any sedation for this procedure, but your interventional radiologist applies a local anesthetic to numb the area where you will receive the steroid injections.

During this 20-minute procedure, you lie on your stomach on a table. Your doctor uses X-rays or computed tomography (CT) to locate the area for the steroid injection. They guide a needle into the area and inject the steroid medicine slowly to ensure it’s targeting the right nerves.

Your doctor then removes the needle and puts a bandage or dressing on the injection site. You may need to stay at the surgery center for about an hour to ensure you don’t have side effects from the medicine. You need someone to drive you home and help you get in and out of the car safely.

Your back pain may begin improving immediately or within 48 hours. Pain relief may last for a few days or a few months — every person is different. Typically, you can resume normal activities the day after your procedure.

Why Choose UHealth?

Expert care from highly trained interventional radiologists. Our interventional radiologists and radiology specialists are experts in a variety of minimally invasive procedures — everything from treatments to clear blocked blood vessels to advanced cancer therapies like NanoKnife®.

Leading-edge imaging care in South Florida. Our doctors are also researchers discovering new ways to improve diagnosis and treatment. That means you can get some of today’s most promising advancements through clinical trials. You benefit from the latest developments that are fast-tracked from the lab to the bedside.