Interventional Pain Medicine is a relatively new discipline where minimally invasive procedures and specialised injections are used to diagnose and treat the source of pain. Apart from improving quality of life by relieving pain, it aims to facilitate the return to everyday activities quickly and without heavy reliance on medication. As an alternative to medication and surgery, it is particularly useful in the diagnosis and treatment of spinal pain.

Existing imaging technology (CT, MRI scans ultrasounds etc) is very good for demonstrating the structure rather than the function of the human body. There is no technology which can demonstrate the source of pain. We can only assume that abnormal structures demonstrated on the scans are the source of pain but unfortunately this assumption is often wrong. As a result patients may be subjected to unnecessary treatments/operations which are not effective in relieving their pain and sometimes lead to further complications.

The only proven way to find the source of pain is the selective local anaesthetic blockade of a suspected potential source.