Everyone experiences pain at one point or another. It often is an indication that something is wrong. Each individual is the best judge of his or her own pain. Feelings of pain can range from mild and occasional to severe and constant.
At Memorial Medical Center, our Pain Clinic is staffed with highly trained and experienced physicians, nurses, and staff. Services include:
What Is Acute Pain?
Acute pain begins suddenly and is usually sharp in quality. It serves as a warning of disease or a threat to the body. Acute pain may be caused by many events or circumstances, including surgery, broken bones, dental work, burns or cuts, labor and childbirth.
Acute pain may be mild and last just a moment, or it may be severe and last for weeks or months. In most cases, acute pain does not last longer than six months and it disappears when the underlying cause of pain has been treated or has healed. Unrelieved acute pain, however, may lead to chronic pain.
What Is Chronic Pain?
Chronic pain persists despite the fact that an injury has healed. Pain signals remain active in the nervous system for weeks, months, or years. Physical effects include tense muscles, limited mobility, a lack of energy, and changes in appetite. Emotional effects include depression, anger, anxiety, and fear of re-injury. Such a fear may hinder a person's ability to return to normal work or leisure activities. Common chronic pain complaints include headache, back pain, arthritis pain, Neurogenic pain (pain resulting from damage to nerves) and Psychogenic pain (pain not due to past disease or injury or any visible sign of damage inside)
Chronic pain may have originated with an initial trauma/injury or infection, or there may be an ongoing cause of pain. However, some people suffer chronic pain in the absence of any past injury or evidence of body damage.
How Is Pain Treated?
Depending upon its severity, pain may be treated in a number of ways. Symptomatic options for the treatment of pain may include one or more of the following:
· Drug treatments such as non-prescription medications like Aleve, Motrin, and Tylenol or stronger medications such as morphine, codeine, or anesthesia. Other drugs -- like muscle relaxers and some antidepressants -- are also used for pain.
· Nerve blocks (the blocking of a group of nerves with local anesthetics)
· Alternative treatments such as acupuncture, relaxation and biofeedback
· Electrical stimulation
· Physical therapy
· Surgery
· Psychological counseling
· Behavior modification
Some pain medicines are more effective in fighting pain when they are combined with other methods of treatment. You may need to try various methods to maintain maximum pain relief.
Radiofrequency Ablation procedures are sometimes used to treat severe chronic pain in the lower back, where radio frequency waves are used to produce heat on specifically identified nerves surrounding the facet joints on either side of the lumbar spine. By generating heat around the nerve, its ability to transmit pain signals to the brain is destroyed, thus ablating the nerve. The nerves to be ablated are identified through injections of local anesthesia (such as lidocaine) prior to the Radiofrequency Ablation procedure. If the local anesthesia injections provide temporary pain relief, then Radiofrequency Ablation is performed on the nerve(s) that responded well to the injections. Radiofrequency Ablation is a minimally invasive procedure which can usually be done in day-surgery clinics, where the patient is sent home shortly after completion of the procedure. The patient is awake during the procedure, so risks associated with general anesthesia are avoided. An IV line may be inserted so that mild sedatives can be administered.
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A neurostimulator is a small, surgically placed device about the size of a stopwatch. It delivers mild electrical signals to the epidural space near your spine through one or more leads (special medical wires). The electrical signals cause a tingling sensation in the area of your chronic pain.
Neurostimulation provides pain relief by modifying the pain messages before they reach the brain. You can adjust the strength and location of stimulation using a handheld programmer. The neurostimulation system does not make any noise. It may be felt as a small bump under your skin, but does not normally show through your clothes.
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