Chronic Pain
Chronic pain can affect your physical, emotional, and mental health. At Florida Medical Pain Management, with offices in New Port Richey, St. Petersburg, and Spring Hill, Florida, the experienced team of pain management experts offers a variety of conservative solutions to ease your pain. The team takes a personalized approach to care, diagnosing the root cause of pain and customizing a treatment plan that makes sense for your unique needs. To learn more about the services available for chronic pain, call the Florida Medical Pain Management office nearest you or book an appointment online today.
Chronic Pain Q & A
What causes chronic pain?
Chronic pain describes persistent pain that lasts for longer than 12 weeks. This type of pain can range from a mild ache to severe, crippling pain. The pain can be due to an injury or degenerative changes as you age.
A variety of health conditions can lead to chronic pain anywhere in your body. When pain shows up in your back, neck, legs, knees, and hips, it can reduce your ability to move about and interfere with your general health and well-being.
Some of the most common causes of chronic pain that the team at Florida Medical Pain Management treats include:
- Cancer
- Headaches
- Fibromyalgia
- Nerve compression
- Inflammatory disease
- Joint disease or damage
- Torn ligaments and cartilage
Complex reflex sympathetic regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is another source of chronic pain that affects your muscles, bones, and skin due to dysfunction in your neurological system.
If you’ve had surgery, you could experience long-lasting post-surgical pain.
How is chronic pain diagnosed?
When persistent pain can no longer be treated with home care and over-the-counter medications, the team at Florida Medical Pain Management can help.
The medical team takes time to review your personal and family medical histories, your job, and your usual activities. They discuss where and how severe your pain is and how it could be interfering with your life.
To identify the root source of your pain, the offices of Florida Medical Pain Management is equipped for on-site diagnostic testing and offer comprehensive physical exams. Once they understand your condition, your provider outlines a treatment plan that focuses on easing your pain and preventing your condition from getting worse.
What treatments are available?
As experienced pain management specialists, the physicians at Florida Medical Pain Management use the latest techniques and technologies to help you manage your pain.
For pain resulting from inflammation, nerve damage, or arthritis or another joint disease, your provider can recommend nerve blocks or steroid injections that deliver medications like anesthetics, steroids, and anti-inflammatories directly into the affected joint or another area of pain.
The team also offers radiofrequency ablation procedures, a minimally invasive treatment that destroys the nerve responsible for pain using heat created by radio waves.
If you have chronic back pain due to spinal conditions not treatable with conservative therapies, your Florida Medical Pain Management provider could recommend a spinal cord stimulator.
This involves attaching electric leads to nerves in your spine. The leads connect to a device you control to send electric currents into the nerve. The currents block pain signals from traveling to your brain.
Ketamine infusions are also available for relieving severe pain. This treatment involves intravenous (IV) delivery of the powerful painkiller directly into your bloodstream for immediate and long-lasting pain relief.
To learn more about your options for chronic pain relief, schedule a consultation online or by calling the Florida Medical Pain Management office nearest you today.