It depends on the type of medications, so some pain medications can be considered rescue medications another can be considered preventive medications so if someone is in chronic pain around the clock then what we typically do is we start them on a pain medication that may last 8-12 hours so you wouldn’t want to…
It’s very unlikely to become addicted to narcotic pain medication. There is a very small sub-set of patients that will unfortunately become addicted to these medications just like any other vice weather it would be tobacco, alcohol or gambling or other things like that. We do keep a very close eye on patients. We do…
So as pain management specialist we take care of people that are in acute or chronic pain. Acute pain may be anything from post-surgical pain to an acute injury on a soccer field, at work or with a motor vehicle accident. Chronic pain may be that associated with pain that’s been longer than about 3…
Oftentimes the answer to that maybe two folded. One may be that your disease may be progressing so if a particular type of pain medication or particular dose of medication may no longer be effective because your disease has progressed into something worse. The other possibility, oftentimes it happens specifically with opiate medications is that…
Primary care physicians can prescribe pain medications but oftentimes when it gets to a certain dose or a certain frequency they may leave it up to us as professional pain management physicians to actually incorporate the medication management. The reason for this is that high dose medication management or frequent medication management can lead to…
No, back pain surgery is not inevitable. Let’s say we have 1,000 people that come in pain probably about I’d say 80% of those may be able to get better with medication, with therapies and with time. 20% of those that are left with some residual pain may get better with injection therapies and only…
No. Back injections are not harmful if they are done appropriately. We’re very judicious on how often and what type of doses we use when we perform back injections for chronic pain. We have seen unfortunately physicians or patients have come in from different physicians that may end up having 20-30 different back injections and…
Yes physical therapy can help pain because oftentimes the pain itself can lead to range of motion abnormalities and that can also translate into more pain and more suffering and more limitations in the things that patients may want to be able to do. By incorporating physical therapy we are able to bring in some…
No, Pain medication is not the only option. In fact there’s usually about 4 different options that you can end up using. The first option is conservative therapies, which can incorporate chiropractic therapy, physical therapy, deep ultrasound, yoga, Pilates things like that. The second type is use of medications but when people typically talk about…