Over the past few years, the health care community has begun to recognize pain as the "fifth vital sign," in addition to blood pressure, pulse rate, respiration rate, and temperature. Acute or chronic pain can affect almost every area of a person's life — sleeping, eating, relationships, work, hobbies, and leisure activities.
If you have acute pain that results from an operation or minor injury, you may be able to treat it conservatively with oral medication. But if the pain lasts longer than three months; doesn't get better with hot/cold packs, over-the-counter medications, or massage therapy; or gets in the way of your ability to perform your normal daily activities, you may benefit from the expertise of Holy Name's pain management professionals.
Chronic pain can affect your body and psyche in adverse ways. When you are in pain, your heart rate increases, your blood pressure rises, and you breathe faster. Constant discomfort can cause you to become sedentary or gain weight or injure other parts of the body because you limp or move awkwardly to try to decrease the pain.
Holy Name Hospital's pain specialists are board-certified in a medical specialty (anesthesiology, neurology, internal medicine, etc), and they have also completed a fellowship (advanced training lasting several years) in pain management. These pain specialists treat patients with pain from many conditions, including:
- sports injuries
- work-related injuries
- motor vehicle and other accidents
- osteoarthritis
- post herpetic neuralgia (PHN, shingles)
- multiple sclerosis
- peripheral and diabetic neuropathies
- rheumatic conditions
- complex regional pain syndrome
- failed back syndrome
- pelvic pain
- cancer
Pain Management physicians generally begin treatment with the most conservative techniques, such as prescription medications in oral, patch, and other formats; physical therapy; transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation; and injected analgesics and nerve blocks. Complementary techniques such as hypnosis, therapeutic touch, massage therapy, biofeedback, and relaxation techniques may be helpful. If these methods do not bring relief, eligible patients can benefit from heat or freezing techniques to numb or deaden nerves, surgically implanted devices that stop pain at the spinal cord level (intrathecal pumps and electrode simulators), and nucleoplasty, a minimally invasive procedure to treat pain related to lumbar disk herniations.
Some patients experience the complete end of pain, but this level of success is not possible for everyone. Patients whose pain cannot be eliminated often find their pain significantly reduced.
Contact Information
Pain Management
Holy Name Hospital
201-833-PAIN (7246).