Do you suffer from chronic pain? You may be among the many people who endure prolonged pain resulting from medical conditions and injuries. Such enduring pain can affect your normal functioning and quality of life. However, you can benefit from the services of a pain center. This post provides critical insights on pain centers and their approaches.
What Is a Pain Center?
A pain center is a health care facility that focuses on diagnosing and managing chronic pain. In this case, chronic pain can result from tissue damages such as bone, tissue, and organ injury or nerve damage. However, pain can also originate from psychological conditions like stress, anxiety, and depression. The goal of pain centers is to reduce or eliminate pain to enhance the quality of life.
There are two different types of pain management clinics. In particular, some pain centers focus on managing a specific type of pain, such as back or neck pain. Then, there are interdisciplinary clinics that combine different approaches to handle all kinds of pain in the body. In addition to providing health care, the clinics also offer self-management skills to manage pain by yourself.
A typical pain center may have the following healthcare professionals:
What Are the Different Types of Pain Management Approaches?
Medication
Pain medicines can help in managing chronic or acute pain. Such drugs include over-the-counter pain relievers such as acetaminophen and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Also, there are prescription pain relievers such as opioids, corticosteroids, and antidepressants. Notably, pain medication can cause dependence and side effects.
Surgical Implants
Surgical implants can also help relieve pain when medication and therapy fails. The two main types of implants are intrathecal drug delivery that delivers morphine or muscle relaxants into the spinal cord and spinal cord stimulation implants that use low-level electrical signal transmissions.
Therapy
There are different types of physical therapy for pain management. For instance, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation therapy (TENS) and bioelectric therapy stimulate the body to emit pain-blocking signals to the brain. Then, physical therapy relieves pain by employing tissue and muscle stretching and strengthening techniques. Psychological therapy aims at reducing psychological stress that enhances pain. Other types of treatments include nutritional, massage, chiropractic, and herbal therapies.
How Do You Select a Pain Centre?
Your health outcomes will primarily depend on the choice of pain center and pain management approach. Thus, you must conduct a background check when selecting the ideal pain center. For starters, get referrals for a local pain center from your social contacts and primary care doctor. Also, you can search online for highly recommended pain centers and take time to review their services. Notably, select a clinic with specialists who are experts in the type of pain you experience. Besides, confirm that the caregiver is a certified and skilled professional in pain management. Importantly, engage a pain management clinic that can create a personalized health plan, coordinate other care, and monitor your progress.
Pain centers apply a multi-disciplinary approach to alleviate chronic pain. Engage a credible pain management clinic to enjoy a pain-free life.
Share30 September 2021
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