Pain management as a field is evolving continuously. In certain respects the treatments are getting better, and every once in a while a trailblazing new therapy presents itself. One of the most prominent advancements, though, has been a more appropriate recognition of treating an individual’s pain better rather than ignoring it (or undertreating).
Here are five of the most prominent evolutions ( or regressions) in pain treatment that we are seeing currently:
1. Refinement in pain management interventions. Over the past few years, there have been some improvements in pain procedure technology that have allowed physicians to get better results. One of these is transforaminal epidural injections. The initial type of epidural injection that was established was called intra-laminar injections. Now pain doctors are able to accurately place their needle into the area where the nerve root travels, getting the pain medication more accurately where it is needed. A second improvement is with radiofrequency ablation machines. When they were first established, they were only able to treat 2 anatomical areas at a time. Now they can do 4, decreasing the patient procedure time.
2. Biologic solutions. Regenerative medicine is not just on the horizon, but is rounding the corner of reality. There are now injection substances that contain numerous regenerative components, including specific cytokines, hyaluronic acid, and stem cells. This will hopefully prove to be instrumental in disc problems, arthritis, and soft tissue and cartilage injuries.
3. Disk treatments have reduced in numbers. As literature has been produced showing that intradiscal electrothermy and percutaneous discectomies have suboptimal results, their use is going down. Along with this, there is some initial data showing that diskography may promote disk degeneration. So its use is going down too. The disc is a true treament enigma. Surgery is a roll of the dice half the time, and interventional nonsurgical pain management treatments are a question mark as well. If there is one area along that could use a better therapeutic option, it is degenerative disk disease.
4. Performing vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty. These treatments are done as an outpatient, and do not entail incisions. They take about forty five minutes, and can have very extremely quick pain relief for individuals with spine compression fractures. More pain physicians are learning how to do these procedures.
5. Comprehensive pain management centers. As more literature is produced showing the benefits of multiple specialists treating patients, comprehensive pain centers are becoming more common. This has benefited individuals substantially by having more medical providers with varied training backgrounds lining up for the benefit of the individual. Patients can end up necessitating fewer narcotics and becoming much more functional.
Want to find out more about our Arizona pain center, then visit Preferred Pain Center’s site on how to choose the best pain doctors Arizona for your needs.