Chronic Pain? Interventional Pain Treatment Could be your Answer.

Suffering From Chronic Pain? It’s Time to Try Interventional Pain Treatment

 

One in 5 American adults experiences what they would describe as chronic pain, which is pain that has lasted or gotten worse for three or more months. If you’re suffering from chronic pain, interventional pain treatment could help — even if you’ve been in pain for years, and even if other doctors have told you there’s nothing they can do to treat your pain.

Doctors who practice interventional pain treatment, such as those at The Heilman Center for Pain and Spine Care, focus on identifying the source of pain to develop a comprehensive treatment plan that minimizes the use of drugs.

If you are suffering from complex chronic pain and have tried multiple types of treatment without finding relief, contact the Heilman Center at (734)796-7555 for a pain consultation.  With over 100 different treatment options, the team at Heilman Center is dedicated to getting you back to enjoying life.

Interventional Pain Treatment Defined

Interventional pain management is a sub-specialty of medicine in which doctors focus on the diagnosis and treatment of chronic pain conditions. This type of pain treatment is multidisciplinary in its approach. Interventional pain specialists work alongside other members of your treatment team to get to the root cause of your chronic pain.

The goal of interventional pain treatment is to reduce or entirely relieve pain, so you can enjoy a higher quality of life. The techniques employed in interventional pain treatment are minimally invasive, requiring less recovery time than major surgery.

What to Expect From Your First Appointment

When you first visit the Heilman Center, you will meet your Pain Specialist, a Physician Assistant who works exclusively with pain management patients. The PA will be your partner throughout your pain treatment process.  Before doing anything else, our Pain Specialist will sit down and listen as you explain your chronic pain symptoms and how it’s affecting your life.  Only you truly know the pain you’re experiencing and our Pain Specialists want to make sure they completely understand your situation.

Your Pain Specialist will ask about other treatments you may have tried, including alternative treatments like acupuncture, massage, or herbal remedies.  Be ready to share information about your experience with your pain, including how severe it is, when it improves or flares up, what parts of the body it affects, and if you’re experiencing any changes in mobility due to your pain.

Pain Specialists use a variety of diagnostic procedures to diagnose your chronic pain such as MRIs, X-rays, ultrasounds, discograms or bone scans. Be sure to bring results of any recent (in the past two years) diagnostic procedures with you to your appointment.  These provide an excellent starting point for understanding the source of your pain.

Sometimes, but not always, experienced Pain Specialists like those at the Heilman Center can determine the cause of your pain during your first appointment. If a specialist is committed to creating a pain relief plan for you they are not going to make a rush diagnosis. Often, additional tests will be ordered to be sure the source of your pain has been identified.

After all diagnostic testing is complete your Pain Specialist will schedule a follow-up appointment with one of the board-certified Pain Management doctors who will work with you to develop a Pain Care Plan that makes sense for you.

Interventional Pain Treatment Techniques

The Heilman Center offers over 100 different combinations of minimally-invasive treatments so every patient has a wide range of pain relief options available to them. The doctors at the Heilman Center will work with you to develop a pain treatment plan with real solutions that minimize reliance on pain drugs.

Interventional Pain Management treatments, typically performed on an out-patient basis, fall into one of two categories: pain-blocking injections or minimally invasive endoscopic procedures.  Injections work to relieve pain by reducing inflammation and swelling that puts pressure on nerves, or blocking pain signals to the brain.  Minimally invasive endoscopic procedures typically work to block pain signals to the brain or reduce pressure on nerves caused by damaged discs or vertebrae.

In addition to these procedures, an interventional pain treatment strategy may pair these procedures with occupational or physical therapy to help build and strengthen other parts of the body to provide compensatory relief for injured areas. Some interventional pain specialists will even recommend lifestyle changes to help with recovery. Changes in diet, exercise levels, and stress management can affect your perception of chronic pain.

What Conditions Interventional Pain Treatment Can Help

Interventional pain treatment can treat many causes of pain, including neuropathic pain, back and neck pain, chronic pain due to injuries or surgeries, and chronic disease pain like osteoporosis or diabetes.

Interventional pain management can also treat other symptoms related to chronic pain, including trouble sleeping, soreness or aching, burning or tingling, and general discomfort.

Get the Help You Deserve

When you suffer from complex chronic pain, you need a Pain Specialist who’s dedicated to finding answers and getting you help. That’s why interventional pain management could be your best option. Interventional pain treatment specialists will use years of training and experience to find the root cause of your pain.  They will explore a range of different treatment options, and work with you on an ongoing basis until you get relief.

If you’ve been suffering from chronic or acute pain, contact the Heilman Center today. It’s time you got back to living your life. Call us today!