Pain Management at GBMC

What Is Pain?

Pain is an uncomfortable feeling that tells you something may be wrong. It can be steady, throbbing, stabbing, aching, pinching, or described in many other ways. Sometimes, it’s just a nuisance, like a mild headache. Other times it can be debilitating. 

Pain can bring about other physical symptoms, like nausea, dizziness, weakness, or drowsiness. It can cause emotional effects like anger, depression, mood swings or irritability. Perhaps most significantly, it can change your lifestyle and impact your job, relationships, and independence. 

 

Pain Classifications

Pain is classified as either acute or chronic. Acute pain is usually severe and short-lived and is often a signal that your body has been injured. Chronic pain can range from mild to severe, is present for long periods of time, and is often the result of a disease that may require ongoing treatment. 

 

Treatment Options

Currently, the best way to treat the pain is to manage the symptoms. If the source of your pain can’t be treated, or isn’t known, our pain management specialist can offer options for pain control. 

We provide the following interventional treatments for the management of pain: 

• Epidural Injections – steroid injections are used to treat inflammation and pain in the spine. The steroids are injected into the epidural space, which is the space around the spinal cord.
  • Caudal epidural lysis of adhesions
  • Interlaminar Epidural Steroid injection 
  • Transforaminal Epidural Steroid injection
• Epidural Blood Patch
• Selective Nerve Root Injections
• Facet joint injections – used to treat pain in the facet joints which are the small joints in your spine that allow your spine to move.
  • Medial Branch blocks
  • Intrarticular Facet Joint injection
• Radiofrequency Ablation / Neurolysis / Denervation – RFA is a procedure that is used to treat pain by heating up a small area of nerve tissue. This procedure can help to reduce pain by blocking the nerve signals that are causing pain.
  • Medial Branch Nerves
• Pulsed Radiofrequency Interventions
  • Intercostal nerves
  • Occipital nerve
  • Trigeminal nerves
  • Dorsal root ganglion
• Sympathetic Nerve Blocks
  • Stellate ganglion block (for CRPS, hot flashes, loss of taste and smell)
  • Celiac Plexus block
  • Lumbar Sympathetic Plexus block
  • Superior Hypogastric Plexus block
  • Ganglion Impar block
• Sympathetic Neurolysis
  • Celiac Plexus Neurolysis
  • Lumbar Plexus Neurolysis
  • Superior Hypogastric Plexus Neurolysis
  • Ganglion Impar Neurolysis
• Neuromodulation
  • Spinal Cord Stimulation – a procedure that is used to treat chronic pain. It involves implantation of a small device that sends electrical impulses to the spinal cord. This can help to block the pain signals that are being sent to the brain.
  • Peripheral Nerve Stimulation
• Intrathecal Medication delivery
• Vertebral Interventions for Compression Fractures
  • Vertebroplasty
  • Kyphoplasty
• Peripheral Nerve blocks
  • Iliohypogastric
  • Ilioinguinal
  • Genitofemoral
  • Intercostal
  • Occipital
  • Supratrochlear
  • Supraorbital
  • Pudendal
  • Lateral femoral cutaneous
• Joint Injections
  • Hip
  • Knee
  • Sacroiliac – used to treat pain in the SI joints that connect your spine to your pelvis.
  • Shoulder
• Bursa Injections (Bursitis)
• Trigger Point Injections
• Botox Injections for migraine, cervical dystonia, thoracic outlet syndrome
• Fluoroscopy, ultrasound guided procedures
• Other specialty treatments:
  • Closed loop stimulation
  • Intracept Procedure for vertebrogenic low back pain
  • MILD Treatment for lumbar spinal stenosis
  • Qutenza patches for painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy and postherpetic neuralgia
  • ReActiv8 to restore neuromuscular control of lumbar spine