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What Types Of Treatments Are Commonly Offered At Spine Pain Clinics?

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Chronic back pain is a very debilitating condition. It often prevents those who have it from holding down a job, caring for their family, or enjoying life. However, spine pain clinics offer a variety of different treatments that can help patients gain control of their back pain and return to a sense of normalcy in their lives. These are some of the various types of treatments that pain specialists provide for back pain patients at a spine pain clinic.

Basic Pain Treatment

The first level of pain relief often includes prescription pain medications and physical therapy. While this may seem like a basic pain treatment, many patients have tried only medications or only physical therapy and have not had success. Often the combination of specific medications and certain types of physical therapy offered at a spine clinic can greatly reduce the severity of a patient's back pain.

Medications, Injections, and Stimulators

Because a pain clinic employs pain specialists, they are familiar with which types of prescription medications have been found to give patients the most relief. They may prescribe stronger pain medications, muscle relaxers, and even antidepressants to patients to make managing their chronic pain easier. Spine pain clinics often offer injections of nerve-blocking medications to help numb back pain as well. Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulators that deliver low voltage electrical currents to painful areas of the spine may be used to reduce pain as well.

Radiofrequency Ablation and Viscosupplementation

Radiofrequency ablation and viscosupplementation are two types of treatment that are often used for patients who suffer from arthritis of the spine. Radiofrequency ablation involves applying chemical agents to the nerves of the spine to stop pain signals from being sent to the brain. Viscosupplementation treats arthritic joints by injection lubricating fluid into them to relieve pain.

Pain Pumps and Spinal Cord Stimulators

If other types of treatments do not help reduce back pain, there is also the option of having a pain pump or spinal cord stimulator surgically implanted into the back. Pain pumps and spinal cord stimulators help relieve back pain by having pulses of electrical currents delivered to the nerves, which in turn blocks the pain signals being sent to the brain. These may have a pump the patient can press to deliver the current as needed or may be set to deliver the current at regular intervals throughout the day.

Spine pain management clinics are usually located inside a hospital, but may also be private practices as well. Treatment is often provided by a team of professionals that may include medical doctors, pain specialists, chiropractors, and physical therapists.

For more information about spine pain management, contact a local pain clinic.


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