Invasive treatment of chronic vertebral pain

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Background. The need to find new effective treatments for chronic pain today is beyond doubt. Pain resistant to nonsteroidal analgesics and gabapentin stimulates the introduction of invasive treatments for chronic pain. Materials and methods. The efficacy of the combination of diclofenac and gabapentin with epidural administration of dexamethasone 8 mg and epidural neurolysis of 30% ethyl alcohol in 1% lidocaine solution was compared. Results. The combination of diclofenac and gabapentin, as well as the use of epidural glucocorticoids, has not shown sufficient efficacy. After the use of glucocorticoids, a long-term assessment on the visual analog scale was at the level of 3.5 points, which corresponded to the results of a one-time neurolysis. At 2 injections of the neurolytic mixture or more, the score on the visual analog scale was lower by 1.5 points compared to the results of glucocorticoid administration. After the 3rd stage of neurolysis, the lack of need for analgesics to correct vertebral pain is accompanied by a reliable absence of conversions to other methods of analgesia. Conclusions. The safety and efficacy of three-time epidural neurolysis with 30% ethyl alcohol in 1% lidocaine solution allow recommending this procedure to patients with chronic resistant vertebrogenic pain, especially in case of low efficacy and poor tolerability of nonsteroidal analgesics.