sympathetic block
What is a Sympathetic Block?
Originating in the spinal cord, your sympathetic nervous system controls all of your body’s involuntary reflexes. These nerves influence bodily functions such as: Blood pressure, sexual arousal, urination & defecation.
A sympathetic block is the administration of a local anesthetic into a sympathetic ganglion. This can help with pain management for disorders that involve your sympathetic nervous system.
What does the procedure look like?
This entire procedure takes less than 15 minutes and is an outpatient procedure, performed in the Portland Pain and Spine clinic. Once the injection site is numb and you are comfortable, your doctor will insert a second needle near the targeted ganglion. Using X-ray guidance, your doctor will inject an anesthetic, and a corticosteroid into the area near the sympathetic nerve ganglion.