In the United States, nerve pain and dysfunction (neuropathy) affects around 14% of people over 40, rising to 28% of those with diabetes.
Neuropathy develops when nerves become damaged or stop working normally. It most often affects your hands and feet; however, it can occur in other parts of your body. You might experience symptoms such as:
Touch sensitivity (allodynia) means you feel discomfort or pain when lightly touched. Hyperalgesia causes you to feel heightened pain from stimuli that would typically just be uncomfortable.
Numerous things can cause neuropathy, including:
Treating any underlying condition is essential to neuropathy care, so at North of Atlanta Pain Clinic in Duluth, Georgia, we first work to identify the cause of your symptoms.
Very often, medications, physical therapy, and other conservative approaches are effective in controlling neuropathy, but nerve pain can sometimes persist even when you manage the cause.
We offer interventional treatments that reduce persistent pain when other treatments haven’t provided enough relief. Here are four options we may consider.
Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy uses components from your own blood. We take a small blood sample and process it to create plasma containing a concentrated number of platelets. We then inject the PRP into the treatment area.
PRP doesn’t simply numb pain signals. Instead, it aims to support your body’s natural healing processes. Platelets contain growth factors that promote tissue repair and may help modulate neuropathic pain in some patients.
Reviews of current research suggest encouraging results, although scientists still need more high-quality studies to determine which types of neuropathy respond best and how long the benefits last.
We can discuss whether PRP could help you based on the location and cause of your nerve symptoms.
Nerve blocks allow us to target specific nerves that may contribute to chronic pain. We inject medication near a nerve or group of nerves to interrupt pain signals, often using imaging to guide precise placement. The response can also help us identify which nerves contribute to your symptoms.
Different nerve blocks target different areas and conditions. For example, a stellate ganglion block targets sympathetic nerves in your neck. We commonly use this type of block for complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) affecting your hand, arm, or shoulder.
For symptoms in your legs or feet, a lumbar sympathetic block targets specific nerves in your lower back. It may help with conditions such as:
We can also use peripheral nerve blocks when pain follows a particular nerve pathway.
Nerve blocks represent only one type of injection available at North of Atlanta Pain Clinic. Depending on the source of your pain, we may recommend:
We also perform injections for painful joints, including your shoulder, knee, elbow, hip, sacroiliac joint, and temporomandibular joint (TMJ).
These treatments don’t directly address neuropathy. However, they can prove useful when nerve symptoms occur alongside spinal nerve compression, joint pain, or other musculoskeletal conditions.
Radiofrequency ablation targets nerves that transmit pain signals. It’s primarily for back, neck, and knee pain.
During treatment, we position a specialized needle near the targeted nerve and use radiofrequency energy to create controlled heat. This disrupts the nerve’s ability to send pain signals, reducing your discomfort.
Radiofrequency ablation doesn’t repair the underlying nerve damage or cure neuropathy. However, it can offer long-term control of persistent, localized nerve pain in appropriately selected patients.
Stem cell therapy offers another regenerative approach to persistent pain. At North of Atlanta Pain Clinic, we use autologous bone marrow aspirate concentrate (BMAC). Autologous means the treatment uses cells and other biological material taken from your own body rather than a donor.
We collect a small amount of bone marrow from the back of your pelvis using a needle and local anesthetic. We then centrifuge the aspirate to concentrate components including mesenchymal stem or stromal cells, platelets, and growth factors. We inject this concentrated material into the area we want to treat.
A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis of diabetic peripheral neuropathy treatment with stem cell therapy found encouraging improvements in measures of nerve function, including nerve conduction.
Stem cell therapy for neuropathy remains an emerging, investigational approach, and it isn’t yet a standard first‑line treatment.
Neuropathy isn’t one single condition, so no treatment works for everyone. Your symptoms, the affected nerves, the cause of your neuropathy, and treatments you’ve already tried all influence what we recommend.
To explore your interventional treatment options, call our office at 770-559-8385 or click here to book your appointment.
