Pain clinic

Referring to pain as its own problem and not just a symptom indicating another problem is a relatively new approach in medicine. One of its expressions is the establishment of pain clinics, devoting their entire activity to treatment of bothersome chronic pain.

What is the nature of the pain clinic?

Pain clinics are where doctors focus on the pain itself. As we know, pain is usually supposed to indicate some problem in the body and is sort of a warning mechanism allowing us to know something is wrong or not normal in a certain spot in our body. With time, it turned out this isn’t always so: sometimes, pain develops without an apparent reason or remains present despite the problem it indicated has long been solved. Those cases indicate the development of chronic pain, which is a problem in its own and not an indicator of another problem.

The pain clinic offers solutions to these chronic pains. It focuses on pain originating in the nervous system (neurology), pain originating in cancer, pain outbursts, chronic joint pain and chronic pain without a clear source.

Most pain clinic doctors have specialized in treating pain itself, investigated its sources and understood the reasons for the development of chronic pain. Using a variety of tools at their disposal in the clinic, they can offer you, those suffering from prolonged pain, effective treatment of the pain.

How is chronic pain defined?

Pain accompanies a person throughout his life. Starting with the blow we got on our leg because we weren’t careful, through muscle aches after great exertion of the body and various diseases – we all experience pain and will experience it in the future. It’s an important mechanism in the body, without it we wouldn’t know something is wrong, and so pain in its foundation is a good thing that helps us.

The problem begins when that pain doesn’t stop: pain that lasts for weeks, months and even years, without passing, despite countless treatments and attempts to make it go away. That pain, which could appear unrelated to an injury, harm or disease, as mentioned, is called chronic pain and must be treated like any other disease – meaning, treated as the problem and find its cause. This is the nature of the pain treatment approach in the modern age.

The treatments offered by the pain clinic

In the pain clinic there are experienced professionals with great knowledge on treating pain, who have accumulated more and more experience in treating chronic pain along the years. These are some of the treatments offered at a pain clinic:

• Treatment with pain killers: although pain killers have gotten a bad reputation with time, they can be an effective solution for chronic pain, if used in the right dosage and a controlled fashion. This is a non-invasive and relatively convenient treatment, which many patients would prefer over other treatments. Today, pain clinics also perform treatments via injection of pain killers directly into the pain focus – usually when its chronic joint pain
• Prolotherapy: another treatment done via injections Here, a special substance is injected into muscles, tendons, tendon connections or certain spaces, which rehabilitates the tissues where a certain injury and trauma occurred that cause prolonged pain. Tissue rehabilitation causes their strengthening and healing, and often reduces the pain in the injured area
• IMS: this method, whose full name is intra muscular stimulation, causes the stimulation of the muscles via needles (a method resembling acupuncture for an outside observer). It’s performed mainly to treat chronic pain originating in the muscles
• Nerve block: in cases where the pain is neurological, meaning originating in the nerves, a “block” of the nerve would sometimes be performed, a process that means in other words, sedating the root of the nerve in order to stop the sensation of pain. This treatment in fact prevents the injured nerve from sending pain signals to the brain (which are sent to it for no reason) and thus make the pain go away. In pain clinics, there are also treatments that include injecting sedatives into the epidural space, and injections under screening to the nerve roots in the spine
• Radio waves treatment: a method focusing on treating neural pain. During the treatment, a needle is inserted (under local anesthesia) into the hurting nerve. Radio waves are transmitted to the needle, causing it to shake and stimulate the nerve, usually causing a reduction in pain.

The treatments in the pain clinics are done via personal adjustment to the problem from which you are suffering, thanks to a variety of methods available to the doctors at the clinic. After diagnosing the problem and symptoms from which you are suffering, the best treatment will be decided on together with you – the one expected to benefit your condition the most and to allow you to return to a pain-free routine, as much as possible.