You will be surprised to know the fact that almost 1000 million Americans and 1.5 billion people from all over the world are spending their lives with chronic back pain. Most of the American and other people have reported that with this pain, it becomes quite challenging for them to sleep at night; neither can they concentrate their daily life activities properly. This chronic pain also adversely affects their gratification of life and energy levels. However, if you are also experiencing a similar type of pain, then the pain clinic can surely help you.
Your back pain shouldn’t worry you now, as here in the current discussion, we will elaborate on the real importance of pain clinic and what does a pain clinic does for your back pain. But before we proceed further, let us briefly introduce you to the real concept of Pain clinic before we unveil its importance.
What is a Pain Clinic?
Pain clinics are also known as health management clinics, and their core purpose is providing health facilities, including diagnosis and proper management of chronic pain. Mainly, there are two types of pain clinics where one is more about identifying the procedures to deals with a particular kind of pain, including back and neck pain, etc. In contrast, the other type is also known as “interdisciplinary clinic,” is more about considering various approaches that look the entire person.
Most of the time, the pain clinic team includes;
- Physical Therapists
- Doctors and Nurses
- Dieticians and Nutritionists
- Psychologists
- Occupational and professional therapists
Along with the medications, these clinics can help you in managing the pain by using various psychological, physical, and behavioral therapies.
Role of Pain Clinic for Back Pain
In the case of musculoskeletal and spine pain, pain management can be served for various purposes. It is quite different from surgical treatments as it involves therapies, not the surgical processes.
Pain management and its various techniques may be engaged as follow;
- Help in the identification of significant cases of patient’s back pain
- As a better substitute for surgery, by incorporating multiple non-surgical programs like “aggressive conservative care program.“
- Help in the identification of those areas that require a complete surgical procedure
- To assure the rehabilitation of the patient after the surgical process
- To help patients in coping up with the stubborn and residual pain after the surgical process.
Over time, with all the technical advancement, pain management is successfully using the latest techniques to resolve the issues associated with pain disorder. Nevertheless, the approaches vary from person to person based on their skill set and level of expertise. To properly understand the diverse uses and methodology of pain medication, it is quite imperative to understand the overview of this fully developed technical field properly. It is equally important to realize that not everyone can cure the disorders associated with pain, as it requires complete knowledge and practice to perform specific therapies and procedures.
What Happens at a Pain Clinic?
Pain clinic better helps you to mitigate the adverse effects of pain, and it may require multiple visits to the clinic. At first visit, there is a probability that you will be seen by generalists, physician practitioners, and nurse practitioners. All of them get supervised by doctors.
In the initial appointment, it may require you to come for the physical examination along with the medical history. It helps in assessing your pain by reviewing the X-rays etc. (if you have already undergone them). If you have concerned a specialized pain clinic, then they will pay equal attention to surgical family, psychiatric, medical, and social background. It is one of the most effective ways to thoroughly access the patient.
In the pain clinic, the patient can cover the four areas including;
- General Medical
It may be a neurologist, rheumatologist, internist, or family practitioner. The doctor with a general medical specialty has extensive knowledge about medicine or medical specialty. - Rehabilitation
The specialist is more expert in managing and examining different functions of the body, including rehabilitation and physical medicine doctor, chiropractor, occupational therapists, and specialist physical therapist. - Interventions
A doctor from the intervention field is a specialist in treating different types of pain, including anesthesiology. The doctors from this field are well-experienced in neuroanatomy and physical structure anatomy. - Psychiatry/Psychology
Based on mental health and patient history, he/she may need to see a psychiatrist or psychologist. The psychiatrist may suggest some medicine or therapies for improving the mental health or overall condition of the patient.
When to See Pain Clinic?
Though there isn’t an exact cause of back pain as it can happen any time and gets subtle over time. Resting and trying some necessary therapies can better cure the pain effectively. To stretch your body gently can also result in speedy recovery.
However, a person must think about the consulting pain clinic if the pain becomes unbearable for you. Numbness and tingling is the alarming sign that you need to visit a pain clinic before it’s too late.
If you have any of the below-mentioned symptoms then you need to visit pain clinic before wasting time;
- Feeling difficulty in lifting, bending, walking and standing for a while
- Muscle Ache
- Pain that exudes down the leg
- Stabbing or shooting pain
- Pain that gets better with the reclining
- Pain that creates discomfort while sleeping
The pain management team can better identify the root-causes and can recommend the ways for immediate treatment.
Final Words
Nowadays, Back pain is quite joint due to hectic routines and various other factors. However, most of the time, you experience the pain due to the reasons discussed earlier. To spend a happy and healthier life, it is quite essential to take such issues seriously.
To visit the pain clinic doesn’t always require you to appear at the clinic only when you are at its verge. You must visit the pain clinic for casual checkups and take all the recommendations seriously to spend a more satisfying life.