Chronic Pain Specialist Q&A

If you have decided to make an appointment at a pain management clinic, then you are most likely wondering what they actually do. They are healthcare facilities that focus on the management and diagnosis of chronic pain. There are two kinds: one which focusses on procedures to deal with different types of pain, like back pain or neck pain. Then there are other clinics that take the interdisciplinary approach that looks at the whole person and not just the problem itself. Your team may include doctors, nurses, physical therapists, psychologists, occupational and vocational therapists, and nutritionists and dieticians. Along with medications, a pain management clinic may help you manage pain with psychological, behavioral, or physical therapies. They might also educate you about your pain, and coach you on key lifestyle changes, and they may even offer alternative or complimentary medicine, like massage, water therapy, biofeedback, acupuncture, cognitive behavioral therapy, and meditation. Their goal is to reduce your pain and help improve your quality of life. Treatment at a pain clinic can give you the right skills to manage your chronic pain on your own and help make you function better, possibly allowing you to live a more normal life and you might also return to work.

A pain management doctor will evaluate your pain and help treat your pain problems. A pain management doctor helps treat sudden pain problems, like headaches, and all sorts of long-lasting chronic pain, including lower back pain. You will visit a pain management doctor in a pain clinic and will go home the same day. Pain management doctors offer a mix of procedures and medication-based treatments that may help stop pain at its source. A pain management doctor is able to help treat pain involving tissue injury (arthritis), nerve injury or nervous system disease (stroke), and a mix of tissue and nerve injury (back pain).

Responding to chronic pain is important as it is the best approach to helping treat your pain that is keeping you up at night and making your daily life miserable. Just ask anyone who has chronic pain, and they will tell you how awful it is day-in and day-out. Here are some suggestions on when you need to see a pain specialist: your pain won’t go away; medications are not helping; when your pain has decreased but it’s still an issue; when you prefer an alternative to invasive surgery; and you are willing to replace prescribed painkillers with alternative drug-and-pain-free-treatments.

Chronic or persistent pain is pain that lasts longer than 12 weeks despite treatment or medication. Most people get back to normal after pain following an injury or operation, but sometimes the pain may carry on for longer or comes on without any history of an injury or operation. Chronic pain can also affect people living with back pain, irritable bowel, arthritis, fibromyalgia, or diabetes. Chronic pain is very real, and it can be complex.

Even with the best treatment, chronic pain may never go away completely. Some people believe that after years of pain, a few visits to a pain specialist will make it go away – not true. Chronic pain is a serious and debilitating condition and treatment requires a lot of work. People who experience chronic pain need a strategic approach: get treatment for the underlying cause, if there is one, and separately treat the pain itself, which often involves seeing doctors and a pain specialist. You can also help manage your pain by taking pain medicine, talking to others about chronic pain and doing things differently, learning to relax, pacing yourself, and planning out your day in order to stay on top of your pain.