Our doctors use non-invasive or minimally invasive techniques to help people suffering from chronic pain, regain mobility, do their routine tasks and improve the quality of life. They determine the cause of pain, ease pain using the latest techniques, improve functional capabilities through a regimen of personalized treatment and also ensure prevention of pain in the future.
Interventional pain management involves diagnosing and treating pain related disorders using a multidisciplinary approach. It aims to relieve, reduce and manage pain so that a patient's overall quality of life is improved using minimally invasive techniques without heavy reliance on medication. It works well when combined with physical therapy, occupational therapy, and lifestyle modification (such as exercise, diet and stopping smoking.
This is particularly useful for patients suffering from back pain and may involve the use of epidural injections to relieve pain or diagnose a specific condition, nerve, root, and medial branch blocks using injections, facet joint injections, discography which involves looking in to the discs to determine if they are the source of a patient's pain, pulsed radiofrequency neurotomy, rhizotomy to turn off pain signals, spinal cord stimulation to block pain, intrathecal pumps to deliver pain medications to the precise location in the spine where the pain is located and percutaneous discectomy/nucleoplasm to decompress and relieve pressure.
While the current focus of medicine is on treating symptoms, regenerative medicine focuses on replacing the damaged tissue or organs (due to disease, trauma, or congenital issues). It is based on the fact that our bodies have the innate response to heal and defend when damaged. One common regenerative method is stem cell therapy where some stem cells are taken from the bone marrow of the hip using a needle which is then injected into the tissue that needs healing. Stem cells have the ability to divide into any cell needed for healing. The new cells can develop into tissues for muscles, ligaments, tendons, cartilage, bone, blood vessels, and skin. Similarly, by flooding an injured area with platelets, the healing process can be accelerated. Platelets help in cellular growth by triggering cell division and tissue regeneration. Stem cells also support the healing process. Platelets and stem cells send out biochemicals that regulate.
Some of the common spine conditions causing pain include arthritis and osteoarthritis involving the breakdown of the cartilage between the facet joints in the spine, leading to low back pain and/or leg pain, back pain in children caused by aggressive play, heavy backpack, tumor or infection, chronic pain caused by degenerative disc disease, depression, herniated disc due to pressure on the spinal nerve, leg Pain caused in the nerves exiting the spine, lower back pain, neck pain caused by muscle strain, osteoporosis and spinal fractures, sacroiliac joint dysfunction, sciatica, scoliosis, spinal deformities, spinal stenosis, spinal tumor and upper back pain among others. A variety of treatment options are available to treat pain in the spine and surrounding areas.
Pain management in Sports Medicine can be very complex given that patients want to get better at the earliest. Mechanically-induced pain, inflammatory pain and neuropathic pain are the most common types of pain in Sports Medicine. These forms of pain can transition from one to the other very easily and rapidly. Overpronation, over supination, short leg syndrome, poor shock absorption, tight and weak musculature and others like fat pad atrophy, hip degeneration and metatarsal malalignment are common reasons for pain. Stretching routines, custom orthotic devices and surgery are possible treatment options. These are in addition to treating inflammation and neuropathic pain.