What to Do When Your Chronic Pain Cannot Be Fixed
There are certain situations as a pain management patient when your pain cannot be fixed permanently with either surgery or physical therapy.
This could be due to either having had a previous surgery that did not get rid of all of your pain or potentially made it worse.
It could also be due to a situation that is not amenable to surgery such as diabetic neuropathy or a different type of neuropathy that is simply something the patient has to live with.
If this is the case and the patient simply has to "live with" their pain, what are the options for appropriate pain reduction? There are multiple options that can benefit the patient so despair should not set in right away.
The first option that should be tried is either physical therapy or physical rehabilitation.
These are extremely similar, with PT being performed by a physical therapist and rehabilitation typically being done by chiropractors.
Both can be instrumental in improving pain along with increasing patient functionality.
Along with these treatments the patient should be under the care of a pain management doctor who specializes in chronic treatment of pain.
This way the doctor can treat the patient with medications that may include anti-inflammatories and potentially narcotics, potentially an antidepressant medication along with something like either Neurontin or Lyrica.
The patient may also require muscle relaxant medications, so it's best to be under the care of a specialist for these decisions.
When it comes to additional treatment, a lot of it will depend on the particular type of pain the patient is having and what's causing it.
It may be interventional treatments from the pain doctor can help directly so for instance if the patient is dealing with chronic pelvic pain the answer may be a superior hypogastric pelvic plexus block.
This is just one example, another one would be a radiofrequency ablation procedure that can be performed for chronic back pain from facet arthritis and also chronic neck pain from the same type of problem.
The point is that if the patient is having a high pain issue along the spinal column interventional procedures can often help a lot.
Along with the treatments, one last resort treatment that can help patients live with their chronic pain is a spinal cord stimulator.
This is a treatment that is not going to cure anything, but it can reduce pain on a chronic basis.
The device has a paddle that is placed around the spinal cord in the epidural space and transmits electrical impulses that can depolarize the pain channels that go to the brain.
This may modulate the pain the patient is experiencing and decrease it substantially.
The implants are placed on an outpatient basis and typically are preceded by a trial of an implant to make sure it's going to work.
The trial is left in place for 4 to 7 days, and if it works the patient receives a final implant.
This involves placing the paddle as mentioned around the spinal cord and also involves attaching it to a battery that can be placed under the skin either in the abdominal area or on top of the buttock region.
With regards to the spinal cord stimulator's overall results have shown an overall success rate of 62%.
For a patient who has chronic pain and very few options for which to work with even a 60% success rate can be very welcoming, even if it only provides 50% relief in a terrible situation.
This could be due to either having had a previous surgery that did not get rid of all of your pain or potentially made it worse.
It could also be due to a situation that is not amenable to surgery such as diabetic neuropathy or a different type of neuropathy that is simply something the patient has to live with.
If this is the case and the patient simply has to "live with" their pain, what are the options for appropriate pain reduction? There are multiple options that can benefit the patient so despair should not set in right away.
The first option that should be tried is either physical therapy or physical rehabilitation.
These are extremely similar, with PT being performed by a physical therapist and rehabilitation typically being done by chiropractors.
Both can be instrumental in improving pain along with increasing patient functionality.
Along with these treatments the patient should be under the care of a pain management doctor who specializes in chronic treatment of pain.
This way the doctor can treat the patient with medications that may include anti-inflammatories and potentially narcotics, potentially an antidepressant medication along with something like either Neurontin or Lyrica.
The patient may also require muscle relaxant medications, so it's best to be under the care of a specialist for these decisions.
When it comes to additional treatment, a lot of it will depend on the particular type of pain the patient is having and what's causing it.
It may be interventional treatments from the pain doctor can help directly so for instance if the patient is dealing with chronic pelvic pain the answer may be a superior hypogastric pelvic plexus block.
This is just one example, another one would be a radiofrequency ablation procedure that can be performed for chronic back pain from facet arthritis and also chronic neck pain from the same type of problem.
The point is that if the patient is having a high pain issue along the spinal column interventional procedures can often help a lot.
Along with the treatments, one last resort treatment that can help patients live with their chronic pain is a spinal cord stimulator.
This is a treatment that is not going to cure anything, but it can reduce pain on a chronic basis.
The device has a paddle that is placed around the spinal cord in the epidural space and transmits electrical impulses that can depolarize the pain channels that go to the brain.
This may modulate the pain the patient is experiencing and decrease it substantially.
The implants are placed on an outpatient basis and typically are preceded by a trial of an implant to make sure it's going to work.
The trial is left in place for 4 to 7 days, and if it works the patient receives a final implant.
This involves placing the paddle as mentioned around the spinal cord and also involves attaching it to a battery that can be placed under the skin either in the abdominal area or on top of the buttock region.
With regards to the spinal cord stimulator's overall results have shown an overall success rate of 62%.
For a patient who has chronic pain and very few options for which to work with even a 60% success rate can be very welcoming, even if it only provides 50% relief in a terrible situation.
