[Medical Q&A] What is the purpose of blocking a blocking injection?

Planner: Chinese Medical Association

Reviewer: Han Liqiang, deputy chief physician, Tianjin Third Central Hospital

Many people go to the hospital for treatment of tenosynovitis and tendinitis. If oral medication is not effective, the doctor will recommend a blockade injection. The medical term for this treatment is "blockade therapy", which is to achieve the treatment goal through local injection of drugs, not to "block" a certain part of the body.

Blockade therapy was first used for emergency treatment of the wounded in war. It relieved pain and reduced inflammatory reactions by injecting anesthetics and glucocorticoids locally into the wounded tissue. Because the injection range at that time was around the wound surface, it looked like closing the wound site, hence the name "blockade therapy". With the development of medical technology and people's deepening understanding of the disease, the injection range of blockade therapy is no longer as wide as before, but more precise. If necessary, it can even be precisely injected under the guidance of musculoskeletal ultrasound, so that the iatrogenic damage to patients will be minimized. Of course, in terms of nature, there is no obvious difference between injection and before. It is still mainly local anesthetics + glucocorticoids. For patients with combined neuropathic pain, nerve nutrition drugs are sometimes added. Although the injection method of blockade injection has been greatly improved compared with the previous one, the name "blockade" has been retained, and it can now be simply understood as "blocking the pain".