Southwest Florida's Health and Wellness Magazine Health and Wellness Articles
By Physicians Rehabilitation
Have you seen doctor after doctor for your pain with little to no relief? Do they spend three minutes listening to your symptoms and then write you an RX for daily pain meds and only move on to the next patient? Then you look at that script and wonder, what are the side effects? Is this addictive? Is this even safe?
For the past 10 years at Physicians Rehabilitation, we have made it our mission to get people out of pain and back into an active lifestyle. Our goal is for you to be pain-free without any surgery or prescription medications. We do this by finding the root cause of your pain. Physician’s Rehabilitation focuses on reducing inflammation with injections, regenerating worn tissues with regenerative medicine, and training with physical therapists on proper form and function. These three key components all increase activity levels and decrease pain levels.
New offerings in the specialty of “Interventional Pain Management” combine injections to remove pain with therapy to increase motion and movement without drugs or prescriptions. Physician’s Rehabilitation offers procedures for pain management in our office. Some of our most successful treatments are discussed below.
Medial Branch Block for the Facet Joints
Medial branch nerves are very small nerve branches that carry pain messages from facet joints to the brain where they are experienced. The facet joints are small joints in the back of the spine that form connections between each vertebra. If these nerves are blocked or numbed, they will not be able to transfer the painful sensation from the joints to the brain. Therefore, this procedure is completed to see if your back pain is caused by the facet joints. The effect will last several hours or more. This is strictly a diagnostic block to test if the facet joints are the source of some of your pain.
Facet Joints
The facet joints are small joints in the back of the spine that form connections between each vertebra. If these joints are blocked or numbed, they will not be able to transfer the painful sensation to the brain. Therefore, this procedure is completed to see if your back pain is caused by the facet joints.
Sacroiliac Joint dysfunction
Sacroiliac joint dysfunction is an injury or inflammation of the sacroiliac (SI) joint which causes pain in the lower back region. The SI joint is formed by the connection of the sacrum with the ilium. This injection is used to both diagnose and treat your low back pain caused by inflammation of the joint. The effect might last a few hours to a few weeks or much longer. Pain relief in the first couple of hours after the injection is the most important as this tells us our diagnosis of SI joint-mediated pain is correct. If the symptoms do return, we will discuss other options available for extended pain relief.
Epidural steroid injection
An epidural injection is an injection of steroids into the epidural space. The epidural space is located in the spine between the vertebrae and the dural sac, which surrounds the spinal cord. Theoretically, the steroid reduces the inflammation of the nerve roots as they exit the spine, which can help alleviate pain in the neck, back, and/or limbs.
Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA)
Radiofrequency Ablation is an injection that uses a specialized machine that generates a radiofrequency current. The current is then passed through a special needle placed next to the nerve (medial branch) which carries pain from the facet joints to the spinal cord. The current generates heat or other physical forces which interrupt the transmission of pain. Radiofrequency ablation is performed after the patient has benefitted from diagnostic medial branch nerve blocks. The effect will hopefully last for an extended period (one year on average). You will likely experience some increase in your neck or back pain over the next several days and then your pain should improve.
Physicians Rehabilitation
Physicians Rehabilitation is a patient-focused practice that provides comprehensive care to eliminate your pain non-surgically. We evaluate each patient and implement an individual care plan specifically designed to alleviate your pain and dysfunction. Trained and licensed providers, with years of clinical experience, work together to provide this plan of care that addresses the specific concerns and problems of each patient. Our clinical care providers can employ a wide variety of physical modalities by utilizing state-of-the-art tools.
Our goal is to identify the source of your pain, promote healing and eliminate your pain. We begin by giving you a thorough examination and quickly address outward symptoms of pain, such as inflammation while gathering your medical history and evaluating your symptoms to get to the root of your pain and dysfunction. Our therapists have found that these advanced technologies, along with a specialized physical therapy program specific to the individual condition, make for extremely successful pain relief treatments. If you or a loved one is suffering from pain, please call our office at (855) 276-5989, or visit us online at www.PhysiciansRehabilitation.com for more information.
Physicians Rehabilitation
3417 Tamiami Trail, Unit A
Port Charlotte, FL 33952
855-276-5989
www.PhysiciansRehab.com
