Back Pain Specialist
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Interventional Orthopedics, and Sports Medicine located in West Des Moines, IA
/assets/production/practices/4a9234c6427f200f9a7857c9b96467b449d6e365/images/2522024.png)
Back Pain services offered in West Des Moines, IA
Back pain can happen suddenly if you suffer a sudden trauma or develop slowly if you have a degenerative condition like arthritis. No matter what is causing your back pain, Michael D. Jackson, MD, FAAPMR, at Regenerative Medicine of Iowa, PC, in West Des Moines, Iowa, can help. Dr. Jackson provides holistic, interventional, and non-surgical therapies for back pain. Don’t suffer any longer from back pain. Call the office to schedule a consultation or request an appointment online today.
Back Pain Q&A
What causes back pain?
Back pain can be due to soft tissue damage sustained in an acute injury. Muscle strains from playing sports or overexerting yourself are common examples.
Chronic back pain is often a result of degenerative conditions that develop with age and wear and tear. These types of conditions include:
- Spinal stenosis
- Degenerative disc disease
- Herniated or bulging discs
- Vertebral compression fractures
- Facet joint arthritis
- Sciatica
- Spondylolysis
- Spondylolisthesis
Conditions like these alter the alignment of your spine and can lead to bone spur growth and thickening of the ligaments. These changes put pressure on the nerves traveling along and away from your spinal cord.
Depending on which nerves are affected, you might experience not just back pain but tingling, numbness, and shooting pain in your arms or legs.
Sciatica is a common example of this problem known as radiculopathy. If you have sciatica, a herniated disc or thickened ligament in your lower back presses on the sciatic nerve in your spine, causing shooting pain down one leg.
How is back pain treated?
Unless you have a severe injury requiring prompt spinal surgery, Dr. Jackson uses holistic, interventional, and non-surgical treatment methods to begin with, which most patients find successful. The types of therapies that could ease your back pain include:
- Activity modification
- Ice and heat
- Anti-inflammatory medication
- Muscle relaxants
- Physical therapy
- Sports medicine
- Platelet-rich plasma (PRP)
- Ultrasound guided injections
Other options for persistent back pain include radiofrequency ablation to destroy nerve endings in the painful area, and spinal cord stimulation, where your provider implants a device that interferes with the pain signals going to your brain.
Is surgery needed for my back pain?
Surgery is the next step for patients whose symptoms aren’t receding with non-surgical treatment. You might require surgery at an earlier stage if your condition is one that holistic interventional treatments can’t resolve. Spine surgeries you might need for back pain include:
- Discectomy
- Spinal fusion
- Laminectomy
- Laminotomy
- Microdiscectomy
- Foraminotomy
- Artificial disc replacement
These procedures remove protrusions like bone spurs and herniated discs and open up space for the nerves in your spine.
Should you require surgery for back pain, Dr. Jackson will discuss your options with you and answer any questions you may have.
Arthritis can cause pain, swelling, and joint stiffness. Treatment for Arthritis can decrease pain, improve function, sometimes stop joint damage, and slow joint destruction.
If you have back pain that isn’t improving after a few days of home treatment, call Regenerative Medicine of Iowa, PC today or schedule a consultation using the online booking tool.
We offer treatment for knee arthritis, erectile dysfunction and shockwave therapy. Call us to book your appointment today.
We offer treatment for knee arthritis, erectile dysfunction and shockwave therapy. Call us to book your appointment today.