According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately one in four adults with arthritis — 15 million people — report experiencing severe joint pain as a result of their condition. Nearly half of these adults also reported persistent joint pain, meaning they feel chronic pain on most or all days as a result of arthritis.
These alarming statistics reveal we need to be doing a lot more in terms of providing flexible pain management strategies for those with joint pain conditions, including hip, knee, and shoulder osteoarthritis. If you’ve suffered from ongoing joint pain for anywhere from several months to multiple years, it’s time to look into what treatment options are provided by the best pain management doctors near me like Neil Patel, M.D.
The Treatment Options Available With an Interventional Pain Management Doctor in Orlando
As previously discussed, a variety of different conditions can lead to painful joints, including osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, sprains, bursitis, and more. In order to provide you with an individualized treatment plan designed to optimize the management of your pain, help you achieve your functional goals, and improve your quality of life, an interventional pain management doctor in Orlando will need to perform an initial consultation in which he establishes an accurate diagnosis for the cause of your pain. Only then can he move forward with selecting interventional modalities to address your symptoms and implement a solution for long-term relief.
Knee/Hip/Shoulder Joint Injections
A joint injection is a minimally invasive procedure that can be used to provide temporary relief from pain caused by an inflamed joint. Generally speaking, this procedure has two purposes — 1) to provide the patient with relief from inflammation and pain caused by various conditions and 2) to help the physician diagnose the cause of the swelling joint. A joint injection is typically recommended for those who have not previously benefited from other treatments, such as physical therapy or oral anti-inflammatory medication.
In this procedure, a steroid injection is delivered into the joint space of the knees, shoulders, wrists, or hips. This can be done either with live x-ray guidance or via palpation of bony landmarks to guide the needle’s entrance into the joint. For the knees, the best pain management doctors near me may discuss using other alternatives such as radiofrequency denervation, peripheral nerve stimulation or spinal cord stimulation.
Cooled Radiofrequency Denervation
Cooled radiofrequency denervation is a safe and effective treatment modality used in the management of hip and knee osteoarthritis pain. This procedure is designed to provide significant pain relief to those patients suffering from osteoarthritis who have not benefited from lifestyle modifications or simple over-the-counter analgesics. These candidates typically also have not experienced long-term relief from the injection of medication into the joints.
In this procedure, an interventional pain management doctor in Orlando will identify the bony landmarks corresponding to the location of the nerves and either place two specialized needles for the hip cooled radiofrequency or three to four needles for the knee cooled radiofrequency procedure. Following motor testing and the use of local anesthesia, the probes will then transmit radio waves, creating a lesion in the nerve. This is to modulate the transmission of pain signals.
Greater Trochanteric Bursa Injection
Finally, a greater trochanteric bursa injection is used to provide significant pain relief to patients with associated hip pain. During this procedure, steroids are injected into the greater trochanteric bursa, the fluid-filled sac near the outside of your hip, via a needle. As with other injections, this can be accomplished with live x-ray guidance or by feeling the bony landmarks.
If you’re suffering from chronic joint pain and feel as if you could benefit from any of the treatments described above, reach out to one of the best pain management doctors near me, Dr. Patel. He will properly diagnose your condition, identify the cause of your pain, and create a treatment plan that best fits your pain type and severity.
