What Is Pain Management?
If you have a chronic pain condition, not only are you in constant pain, but you can find it hard to cope both physically and mentally with the unrelenting discomfort. Gazelle Aram, MD, at Expert Care Center in Delray Beach, Florida, is a pain specialist who provides a holistic approach to pain management so you can find the treatments that work best for your condition. To get started, schedule a consultation with Dr. Aram online or by phone today.
Pain Management Q & A
Pain management is a comprehensive care plan that helps patients cope when they have severe or chronic pain conditions for which it may not be possible to eradicate the pain.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, chronic pain is a problem that affects around 50 million Americans, with almost 20 million experiencing some form of severe chronic pain.
Administering increasingly potent doses of pain-relieving medication isn’t effective as the only treatment for chronic pain, although medicines do have their place in pain management.
Dr. Aram creates a pain management plan for her patients at Expert Care Center that incorporates medication and other types of therapies to achieve optimal outcomes and relieve pain as much as possible.
Long-term degenerative conditions like osteoarthritis, disc herniations, and nerve damage are a major cause of chronic pain, as are many other incurable musculoskeletal conditions. Injuries to soft tissues that don’t receive the correct treatment in the early stages can also become chronic problems, like an acute back injury developing into ongoing lower back pain.
Conditions arising from repetitive stress that lead to inflammation and small tears in your tendons, such as tennis elbow or tendonitis, are another frequent cause of chronic pain.
Chronic pain often starts when there’s an injury or illness, and in the acute stage, the pain acts as a warning that there’s something wrong. However, after the acute phase, the pain sometimes continues even though it’s become redundant, so instead of helping you it’s making everything far harder.
Chronic pain can also be a result of nerve damage or dysfunction, which means your nerve endings are sending pain signals back to your brain even when there’s no damage to the tissues.
Once she confirms the cause of your pain, Dr. Aram can prepare a plan detailing the medication you should take and any other therapies that could help you manage your condition. Potential therapies that Dr. Aram can incorporate into your plan include:
- Alternative medicine
- Epidural steroids
- Facet joint injections
- Nerve blocks
- Joint and soft tissue injections using ultrasound guidance
- Stretching exercises
There are also implantable technologies that are effective for people with severe pain who aren’t finding relief with other interventions. Devices such as spinal cord stimulation (SCS) and dorsal root ganglion (DRG) stimulation work by blocking pain signals so they don’t reach the brain.
Pain management also requires consideration of the importance of mental health – for example, using counseling, therapy, and information about how to manage pain from a psychological perspective.
For more information about pain management, call Expert Care Center or book a consultation online today.