Chronic Pain Specialist

What is chronic pain?

Chronic pain is pain that doesn’t improve or go away even when it’s no longer useful. Describing pain as useful might sound odd, but pain is a vital sensation that helps keep you alive. Pain tells you that you’re hurt or you have a disease that’s harming your organs. 

If you don’t know you’ve got a wound or other medical problem, you won’t take care of it, and that could be fatal.

The acute pain you feel if you stub your toe or get tonsillitis lets you know you need to take action. Normally, when the injury starts healing or you’re beginning to recover from your illness, the pain eases off and fairly soon disappears, having done its job.

Chronic pain doesn’t ease off in time, but persists for months and often years, causing disruption to your life and often having disabling consequences for both your physical and mental health.

What causes chronic pain?

Chronic pain can be a symptom of chronic diseases, like arthritis, for example. Feeling the incurable joint pain of arthritis doesn’t provide any benefits — in fact, it can make the condition worse because you might start avoiding exercise.

Back and neck pain are common problems, as are recurring headaches, migraines, and cancer pain. Poorly healed injuries and excess scar tissue can cause chronic pain, for example, a tendon injury that doesn’t fully repair or scar tissue from surgeries or burns. 

Damage to the nerves can cause severe chronic pain. Your nerves can also malfunction and start sending out pain signals when there’s no tissue damage at all.

What noninvasive treatments are there for chronic pain?

The Interventional Spine Medicine team assesses each case individually before creating a comprehensive pain treatment plan. The plan likely begins with noninvasive treatments, such as:

• Physical therapy
• Acupuncture
• Craniosacral therapy (CST)
• Medication management

There are various medications that can help ease chronic pain. Anti-seizure drugs can be effective for nerve pain for example, and low dose tricyclic antidepressants can sometimes resolve chronic pain.

Opioid medication is often necessary for cancer patients, but its use in other patients is under debate because of the risks. These include both tolerance and addiction. 

The Interventional Spine Medicine team uses opioids if they’re appropriate for your pain, but monitors you carefully to reduce the risk of addiction and other adverse effects.

What other treatments are there for chronic pain?

The treatments you need for your pain can depend on what kind of pain you have and how well you respond to frontline therapies. The Interventional Spine Medicine team provides an extensive range of treatments, including:

• Botulinum toxin injections
• Epidural steroid injections
• Facet joint injections
• Intradiscal electrothermal annuloplasty (IDEA)
• Percutaneous disc decompression
• Peripheral nerve blocks
• Radiofrequency lesioning
• Spinal cord stimulation (neuromodulation)
• Trigger point injections

If you’re finding life hard because of chronic pain, call Interventional Spine Medicine today.