Should I Rest or be Active after a Back Injection?

Recovering from most surgical procedures requires at least a short period of restful recovery before returning to normal activities. But is the same true for less invasive procedures like pain injections? That’s our topic for this blog article – is it better to rest or be active after you get a pain management injection?

Pain Injections

There are a handful of different pain injections that can be used in different situations to treat pain. Here is a brief outline of a few:

Corticosteroid Injections reduce swelling, inflammation, and pain in joints and other areas of the body.
Nerve Block Injections work to prevent pain signals from travelling to/from the brain and the painful area.
PRP Injections use the patient’s own blood platelets and plasma to encourage natural tissue regrowth.

The procedure for each of these injections is relatively, but not exactly, the same. For example, PRP injections require the physician to first draw some of the patient’s blood and run it through a centrifuge before the solution can be re-injected into the patient’s body. That being said, all of these injections involve numbing the injection area, and then injecting the solution. Most of the time the procedures can be completed in about 30 minutes, though various outside factors may inflate that timing.

Rest vs. Activity

So what, if any, are the activity restrictions after a pain injection? After most surgeries, patients aren’t allowed to return to rigorous activity for days, or weeks after the procedure. When it comes to pain injections, activity restrictions are not nearly as strict. With most injections procedures, patients will be able to return to their routine daily activities on the same day, or day after the procedure. If you have a physically demanding job that requires a lot of lifting and movement, there may be some additional restrictions. Each patient situation is different, and you should always defer to your doctor’s specific instructions.

If you are struggling with pain, injection therapy may be a helpful treatment option. Contact the pain management specialists at Advanced Spine & Pain Clinics of MN today to see if you are a good candidate for one of these injections.