Pain Management

Treating Your Pain

Your journey to find pain relief may have been a long one. Often, patients come to Hughston after they have exhausted other pain management treatments, such as physical therapy or life-style changes. If you suffer from chronic pain, interventional pain management may be the solution you have been searching for.

Common Types of Treatment

Interventional pain management provides patients with minimally invasive options to treat pain without the use of drugs or major surgery. Here are a few of the treatments Hughston physicians specialize in to manage chronic pain:

• Epidural Injections
• Radiofrequency Ablations
• Spinal Cord Stimulator Placement
• Kyphoplasty/Vertebroplasty
• Intracept Procedure
• Orthobiologics
• Ultrasound Guided Joint Injections

What is Interventional Pain Management?

With interventional pain management, your physician can use a variety of quick minimally invasive procedures for a multitude of conditions. Some of these procedures can block specific nerves, which interrupt the pain signals transmitted to the brain. Depending on your condition and symptoms, your doctor will discuss the procedures available to you. The goal of the treatment is to disrupt the pain cycle and reduce or alleviate your pain.

Types of Treatments

Nerve Blocks: Since pain travels down nerves to the brain, physicians use nerve blocks to interrupt the signals. The type of nerve block your doctor uses will depend on your diagnosis and health history. Some treatments are minimally invasive while others require surgery. After a nerve block, your pain relief may last for hours, days, or can be long-term or permanent.

Injections usually include a numbing agent and steroid that targets different areas of pain in the body. Some patients prefer injections, such as epidural steroid injections, facet joint injections, and trigger joint injections because they are easily administered, minimally invasive, and provide effective pain relief.

Radiofrequency Ablation uses a radio wave to produce an electrical current that physicians use to heat an area of nerve tissue. This procedure decreases the pain signals in the area of treatment and is often used for treating low back pain or neck pain.

Spinal Cord Stimulation treats chronic pain by applying gentle electrical currents to the source of your pain. Your physician will apply electrical leads close to the spinal column, while also inserting a tiny generator into the abdomen or buttock. The generator emits electrical signals to the spinal column, thus blocking the brain’s ability to perceive pain.

Orthobiologics: The goal is to aid the body’s response by using orthobiologic products, which are substances naturally found in the body. In particular, research attention has been on using adipose (fat) tissue, scaffolds, stem cells, and growth factors in orthopedic surgery and nonsurgical treatments. These procedures are minimally invasive and while no treatment can fully heal damaged joints, these approaches are showing promise in an array of conditions.