Chronic Pain Management

Get Pain Relief, Decrease Inflammation.

Chronic pain management is becoming increasingly popular as chronic pain is an epidemic that is afflicting millions of people on a daily basis and is only continuing to get worse. Patients are suffering with pain due to old injuries, arthritis, tissue inflammation, or other degenerative conditions of the body. The usual medical answer is to put the patient on pain and “anti-inflammatory” medications to ease the pain while waiting in hope that the body will recover. However, this painkiller road to recovery is filled with potholes and often becomes the source health issues such as the side effects of long-term use of these two types of medications.

What is Chronic Pain?

Chronic pain is defined as the prevalence of pain symptoms that persist over 12 weeks and can last for months, if not years. Most chronic pain symptoms are dull and achy of a mild to moderate intensity but can periodically become “flared up” with severe, debilitating pain. These symptoms can interfere with normal home, work, or recreational activities. Typically, chronic pain occurs when the body is unable to resolve the initial acute pain stage. The initial injury and pain may have been disregarded or incompletely treated with self-medication and home therapy, or been treated by a practitioner who did not recognize the danger signs of poor pain recovery.

Chronic pain can be related to the joints, muscles, or damaged nerves in the spine, trunk, head, and extremities. It is often associated with a “post-traumatic” neurological reaction, where the body’s warning system does not function properly. Instead, the brain overreacts by behaving as if the body is continually being reinjured, due to the fact that the injured tissues involved have physiologically changed and improperly adapted. To treat the “causes” of chronic pain one must address both the nature of the initial injury and the various ways the body’s healing recovery has gotten stuck.

Treatment Options for Chronic Pain

Whether you are suffering from chronic pain or acute pain, our integrative physicians can help provide pain relief, decrease inflammation, and speed up the healing process. Our experts specialize in chronic pain management using a combination of:

Hands-on physical medicine
Joint and muscle injections
Acupuncture and related techniques
Electrotherapy
Homeopathy
Nutritional therapy
Guided imagery
Hypnotherapy
Appropriate non addictive medication

Chronic Pain Management

Chronic pain management differs from acute care in that the goal is to first identify the causes of the symptoms rather than simply cut off the pain sensation This can be done with a detailed history and physical exam and a functional motion assessment of the body. Once these physical, emotional, and nutritional factors are identified, we can treat the sources of the pain symptoms. Because chronic pain often affects multiple areas of the body, it can take some time to fully feel the effects of treatment. The key to recovery is to focus on improving the persons life quality by improving their activities of daily living.as the body re-adapts properly.

Another part of treating chronic pain is to educate the patient about the modifications of diet, emotional stress, sleep, and physical activity that must be made to allow for healing. Patients must participate in a home care plan to aid in recovery. During periodic reevaluation sessions, your physician will ask questions to help determine the severity of your pain and how it is limiting your daily functions, in order to update your long-term treatment plan. Each treatment session typically includes a review of changes in troubling symptoms, and a focused reevaluation of the injured areas as well as a treatment procedure to assist the body’s recovery of more normal function.

The goal is to help your body heal itself with a targeted mix of methods that will allow you to get back on track to reach your life goals. Chronic pain does not have to limit your life. Our integrative pain doctors can help you navigate the potholes on the road to recovery.