Epidural steroid injections into the neck may allow My Back Pain Coach individuals to avoid surgery. They may allow two things by reducing the inflammation around pinched nerve roots. They may relieve pain, and maybe permit the muscle weakness to to get better. Pain management doctors often test their patients with drug testing. This is just one of the methods utilized to ensure that patients are sticking with their treatment plan and not abusing illicit drugs while being prescribed narcotics.
The various methods used for testing in a physician's office may be a urine sample or a saliva drug test. Both have been shown to be extremely accurate, and here is how the urine type works. The patient will urinate into a specific drug testing cup. If it is one of the immediate testing sample cups, it is much more than just a specimen cup. The cup has specific strips inside for testing specific medications or medication classes.
Also, the cup has a temperature gauge which is very good if the patient tries to put in either synthetic urine or somebody else's urine. There's a big difference between room temperature and body temperature. When a patient urinates into the cup, if there is a sufficient quantity the urine will come in the contact with each of the testing strips in the cup. The chemical reaction with each strip will then show whether or not that medication or medication class is positive and the sample. Typically within 5 to 10 minutes, the results are available being viewed from the outer side of the cup to the doctor. The additional method is to place testing strips individually into the urine that can show a positive or negative result.
These cups are typically over 99% accurate. They are not foolproof, and there are plenty of methods the patient sometimes uses to try and fool them. This may include using someone else's urine sample, or putting in adulterating substances inside the sample such as a bleaching agent. There are certain types of drug testing cups that specifically will look for these types of adulterants. Once the instant screening method is accomplished, the specimen may be sent off to a testing laboratory for a confirmation. What is a confirmation? This is when the sample is sent to the lab, and the lab uses chromatography to specifically look and see if narcotics or other drugs are present. They also look for adulterents as well.