Not all chronic pain is the result of an
accident or injury. Many problems are
simply the result of the aging process,
and can include arthritis, spinal stenosis
or herniated disk. In some cases, diseases
such as cancer and their associated
treatments can be the cause of chronic
pain.
For someone experiencing this constant,
annoying and relentless discomfort, the
options can seem limited: Commit to a
never-ending routine of pain medication,
or in the most severe cases, undergo
surgery to attempt to fix the problem.
The most powerful pain medications—
opioids—have an unfortunate side
affect: addiction. According to the
National Institute on Drug Abuse, chronic
pain affects an estimated 100 million
Americans (one-third of the population)
and both opioid addiction and accidental
overdoses are on the rise. Even seemingly
harmless over-the-counter medications
like ibuprofen are linked to stomach,
heart and kidney problems with longterm
use.
Published reports estimate that back
surgery fails between 20-40% of the
time. Additionally, for a large number of
patients who undergo successful surgery
for chronic pain, it is not uncommon to
have some form of recurrent pain after
the initial relief they feel soon after
their operation. The common causes for
recurrent pain are injury at a new site
or recurrence at the site operated upon.
Today there is a new option—interventional
pain management. This relatively new and
exciting field of medicine offers minimally
invasive treatments for those who wish
to avoid surgery and/or long-term
medication use. Best of all, undergoing
one of these minimally invasive pain relief
interventions does not exclude patients
from being a candidate for future surgery
if it fails to relieve their symptoms.
Interventional pain management is a
subspecialty. The doctor evaluates the
patient with chronic pain, reads and
interprets diagnostic imaging tests like
MRIs and x-rays, and then determines
which treatment will work best. The
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