New Treatments for Chronic Pain

Any pain that lasts more than several months is defined as chronic pain. Although some types cannot be cured, there are various treatments that can help a patient find relief. How to manage pain? To get the answer to this question, you need to tell your physician how long the pain has lasted, where it hurts, what is causing it and, of course, how bad it is. Painkillers are the first options that come to our mind when we feel pain, but sometimes they do more harm than good. Also, pain pills are sometimes simply not effective enough. Arkansas Pain management experts introduced us to the new procedures that help with pain and get patients back to life.

Just as the chronic pain causes, the treatments are very diverse: prescription and over-the-counter drugs, acupuncture, meditation etc. To produce complete pain relief, no single technique is enough. Instead, it’s very important to combine treatment options in a good way.

Pain shots deliver medicine just where it’s needed in patient’s body. Doctors commonly use an X-ray to find exactly where to put it. In general, pain shots are very diverse, but nerve root blocks and epidural steroid injections are among the most used pain relief treatments. Your physician, however, needs to determine which medicine (or combination of medicines) is best for your own medical condition. The benefits of pain shots usually last from one month to one year, depending on the source and the type of pain, the severity of medical condition etc.

Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA) is targeting the nerves that are responsible for sending pain signals to patient’s brain. A doctor uses a needle with a tip that is heating up and places the needle very close to the nerve. Since the heat zaps the nerve, it isn’t able to send the pain signal. Radiofrequency Ablation can relieve pain for more than eight months and, after that period, you can be treated again.