Pain, by its very nature, is incredibly complex. This is largely due to the fact that one person’s experience of pain can be vastly different from another, even if both individuals are suffering from the same condition. This complexity has often led to pain being misdiagnosed, misunderstood, and ineffectively treated by doctors across America.

Fortunately, treatment options are available to manage your pain, provide you with long-term relief, and get you back to doing the things you enjoy with the help of a pain specialist near me like Neil Patel, M.D. Whether your pain is the result of a long-term chronic condition, sudden injury, or anything in between, Dr. Patel will take a comprehensive approach to address all aspects of your pain and create a customized treatment plan to reduce pain and maximize function. The best method of treatment will vary depending on the severity and type of pain you’re experiencing.

How a Pain Management Clinic Near Me Determines Which Treatment Is Appropriate for My Pain

Before we dive into the wide variety of treatment options provided by a pain management specialist, you’re probably asking yourself, “How does a pain management clinic near me determine which treatment is appropriate for my pain?” Given that no one treatment is guaranteed to provide complete relief for any individual, the answer is that a pain specialist like Dr. Patel will need to perform an evaluation of your symptoms and pain history. Depending on how often and how severe your pain is, you may need multiple arms of treatment to provide you with the long-term relief you deserve.

Nerve Block

Your nerves alert your body that something is wrong by sending painful signals to a specific organ or region of your body. A nerve block is a way of “turning off” these signals by injecting anti-inflammatory medication around a nerve or bundle of nerves. Such treatment can allow a damaged nerve to heal, provide you with pain relief, and help your doctor identify other more specific causes of pain. A pain management specialist may use nerve blocks to treat pain in your back, legs, shoulders, arms, neck, hips, and spine.

Epidural Steroid Injection

An epidural steroid injection is an injection of medication into the “epidural space” around the spinal cord to provide temporary or extended relief from pain or inflammation in the spine, arms, or legs. A pain specialist near me may recommend an epidural steroid injection for painful conditions such as a herniated disc, chronic back pain following spinal surgery, and spinal stenosis.

Kyphoplasty

If you’ve been diagnosed with osteoporosis or a compression fracture in your spine, kyphoplasty may be able to prevent permanent spinal deformity and relieve pain and mobility problems caused by vertebral compression. During this procedure, the doctor will insert a balloon inside your vertebra using a small tube and inflate it to restore your vertebra to its original height. Once the balloon has been safely removed, bone cement will be used to fill the newly created space and stabilize your vertebra.

Joint Injections

For common joint-related conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, adhesive capsulitis, bursitis, and avascular necrosis, a pain management clinic near me may recommend joint injections. During this process, steroids are injected directly into the joint space via a needle with either live x-ray guidance or palpation of bony landmarks. Such steroids like cortisone are potent anti-inflammatories designed to provide substantial reduction of joint pain. To discover a customized treatment plan that best fits the type and severity of your pain, don’t hesitate to reach out to a pain specialist like Dr. Patel today.