What is arachnoiditis?
Arachnoiditis is a painful disease that happens when the arachnoid lining — one of the protective membranes around your brain and spinal cord — grows badly inflamed.
The main sign of arachnoiditis is continual low back pain. The pain can also occur in your legs and, in the worst cases, throughout your whole body. You may also have:
- Numbness, weakness, or pins-and-needles sensations in your legs
- Strange sensations like skin crawling
- Stinging pain
- Burning pain
- Radiating pain that shoots down your leg
- Muscle twitching or spasms
- Bladder and bowel dysfunction
- Sexual dysfunction
Arachnoiditis can be different in each case, as it doesn’t follow a standard pattern or progression. Often the pain is severe and disabling, especially if you have other symptoms along with the pain.
What causes arachnoiditis?
The causes of arachnoiditis include infection, trauma to your spine, and spinal nerve compression.
Invasive back surgery, which involves multiple punctures to your spine, is another way that you could potentially get arachnoiditis.
Can back surgery treat arachnoiditis?
Back surgery isn't a good fit for arachnoiditis treatment. At best, surgery for arachnoiditis provides only short-term pain relief.
This is because surgery causes additional damage to your spinal cord, triggering new scar tissue growth that can worsen your symptoms.
How do you treat arachnoiditis?
Although there's no cure for this condition, Integrated Spine and Pain Services offers a variety of highly effective approaches to managing your pain. The experienced team focuses on reducing your pain and improving your quality of life using a variety of noninvasive and minimally invasive treatments.
Some of the different options that the team may recommend for arachnoiditis include:
- Spinal cord stimulation
- IV infusions, such as lidocaine or ketamine
- Medication
- Physical therapy
- Psychotherapy and support groups
Usually, a combination approach can help you live with arachnoiditis without it taking over your life or preventing you from doing the things you want to do.
Arachnoiditis doesn’t have to be a sentence to lifelong pain. The Integrated Spine and Pain Services team is waiting to help, so book your appointment by phone or through the online scheduling tool today.
