Chronic Body And Nerve Pain

Chronic Pain Management

Chronic pain refers to pain in the outer body and pain from the internal organs. It’s a pain that persists over time and commonly arises from a long-standing medical condition or structural damage. This broad category of pain includes:

Neck Pain
Back Pain
Bone Pain (Osteoporosis, Arthritis, Bone Cancer)
Pain from Muscle Spasms
Fibromyalgia
Leg Pain (Sprains, Gout, Neuropathy, Poor Circulation)
Peripheral Neuropathy
Sciatica

Nerve pain (from cancer, AIDS, phantom pain, feeling like pins and needles pricking) Organ pain (from injuries, infections, inflammatory bowel syndrome, pelvic pain, stomach ulcers).

Reasons for Chronic Pain Include:

Circulatory Problems (Poor Circulation, Diabetes, Artery Blockage, Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy)
Headache (Migraine, Tension Headache, Cluster Headache)
Joint pain
Whiplash
Spinal Cord Disease
Trauma
Advanced Cancers

Give Genesis Medical Clinic a call at 813-549-7465 immediately if:

You’ve been in pain for more than 3 months without any diagnosis.
You’re feeling depressed or blue and you no long enjoy or engage in your favorite activities.
You’re unable to sleep because of the pain.
You had an illness or injury that healed, but you still have pain.
You were involved in an auto accident, a slip-and-fall, or other traumatic injury.

Chronic pain, if left untreated, often results in depression, insomnia, mood changes, irritability, and loss of interest in daily activities. It may require long-term medication if you suffer fromconditions such as diabetes or high blood pressure.

Interventional Pain Management

Genesis Medical Clinic provides medical services such as Interventional Pain Management in Tampa, Florida.

If you have pain and have already explored traditional pain therapies such as physical therapy, OTC drugs and opiates; a noninvasive interventional procedure may be an alternative to live a good quality of life free from constant, intractable pain.

Interventional pain management is a discipline in pain management used to help patients relieve their pain. The specialized pain doctors go beyond medication to help patients deal with pain. Specifically, they use a vast array of therapies to diagnose, reduce, and if possible, completely relieve a person’s pain. The ultimate goal of this therapy is to assist patients in getting back to their normal active lives as quickly as possible.

Common techniques we employ for Interventional Pain Management:

Epidural Steroid Injections
Facet Joint Injections and Medial Branch Blocks
Sacroiliac Injections
Radiofrequency Ablation
Knee Injections
Nerve Blocks

Epidural Steroid Injections

The epidural steroid injections are used to reduce pain and inflammation in the nerve roots of the spine. To clarify, a local anesthetic and a steroid are injected into the epidural space, the area outside the membrane that covers the spinal cord and its nerves. These injections help patients experience a significant reduction in pain, but more than one injection is generally needed for pain reduction.

The patient will have to be injected every three to four weeks; this procedure can be stopped when a significant reduction of pain is achieved. If the pain resumes, the injections will need to be continued. These injections can help you with back and sciatica pain.

Facet Joint Injections and Medial Branch Blocks

Facet joint injections and medial branch blocks are typically used to diagnose the location and cause of the pain. This injection contains a small dose of local anesthetic and/or steroid that are injected directly into the facet joint to block the pain.
The main purpose of this injection is to help the patient tolerate the pain better so that they can participate in rehabilitative physical therapy. Facet joint injections aren’t advised as a long-term solution to chronic pain but rather an aid to help a patient work through their recovery.

Sacroiliac Injections

Sacroiliac injections are injected directly into the sacroiliac joint that is located at the bottom of the spine. The pain reduction effect of this injection can last for 24-48 hours. It can last for weeks with a steroid medication or just a couple of hours with a local anesthetic. These injections can also be used as diagnostic tools.

Radiofrequency Ablation

Radiofrequency ablation is a pain management therapy that uses radio waves to create an electrical current. This current then delivers heat to selected nerve tissues to reduce chronic pain symptoms that are associated with various conditions. The application of heat to the nerve tissue impairs the nerves, resulting in a semi-permanent disturbance in the transmission of pain signals from the spinal column to the brain.

Knee Injections

Viscosupplementation is a medical procedure during which lubricating fluid is injected into a joint. It is also called hyaluronan injections / hyaluronic acid injections; viscosupplementation is most commonly used to treat symptoms of knee osteoarthritis. The goal of adding hyaluronic acid to the existing joint fluid of an osteoarthritic knee is to:

The candidates for viscosupplementation are patients with knee osteoarthritis who has failed to improve with other non-surgical treatments.

Nerve Blocks

Nerve blocks are the results of using a nerve-numbing injection. Specifically nerve blocks help with chronic pain treatment and management. Often a group of nerves, known as the plexus or ganglion, causes pain to a specific organ or body region. This can be blocked with an injection into a specific area of the body. Immediately after, there is pain relief but the injections need to be repeated from time-to-time.
Other Useful Interventional Pain Management Procedures Include:

Injections in the ankles, knees, or hips
Computed tomography
Adhesiolysis
Disc denervation
Epidurolysis
Botox injections
Hardware blocks
Kyphoplasty and vertebroplasty
Trigger point injections

Schedule an appointment today to see how we can help relieve your pain through any of the above procedures so that you can regain your healthy active life.