Neuropathy: 7 Pain Treatment and Management Options
Stabbing, shooting, burning, and electric shock-like pain. Tingling and pins and needles sensations.
Living with nerve pain and discomfort from neuropathy can be very, very hard. But pain management specialists know what to do.
Once they have determined the underlying cause and the type of nerve damage, they can recommend effective treatment and management.
1. Diabetic Care
Diabetes is the most common cause of neuropathy (60-70 percent of people with diabetes suffer from some form of neuropathic pain). When diabetes is the cause, proper diabetic care can decrease and eliminate symptoms.
2. Antidepressants
Doctors often prescribe antidepressant drugs like tricyclic antidepressants and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors to treat neuropathy.
These drugs can reduce neuropathic pain by increasing chemicals in the brain that reduce incoming pain signals.
3. Anticonvulsants
Pain specialists sometimes prescribe anticonvulsants to treat neuropathic pain because they may stop damaged nerves from transmitting faulty pain signals.
4. Nerve Blocks
Nerve blocks can provide long-lasting relief from neuropathic pain.
A nerve block procedure involves injecting steroids, anesthetics, and other medications into the nerves producing faulty pain transmissions. The pain relief can last for days, weeks, or months.
5. Electrical Impulse Stimulation
Typically, this treatment option is used only after other options have failed.
Spinal Cord Stimulation (SCS)
First, a surgeon performs a minimally invasive surgery to implant a spinal cord stimulator. A spinal cord stimulator is a device that generates electrical impulses on your spine.
The electrical impulses alter how your brain processes pain by sending electrical impulses to the nerves in the spinal cord.
Dorsal Root Ganglion Stimulation (DRGS)
If you suffer from neuropathy of the feet, hands, knees, groin, and chest, dorsal root ganglion stimulation is likely a better treatment option than spinal cord stimulation.
Like SCS, DRGS treatment uses electrical impulses to stop nerve pain. However, unlike SCS, DRGS trains electrical impulses on nerves in certain body parts (hands, feet, chest, etc.).
Like SCS, a DRGS device implant on the spine involves a short surgical procedure.
6. Multidisciplinary Approach
Neuropathic pain often responds poorly to any single pain treatment or management method.
A multidisciplinary approach that combines one or more methods, such as medications, physical therapy, psychological treatment, and surgery, can be much more effective.
Pain specialists coordinate with other health professionals to provide patients with the best possible pain treatment and management.
7. OTC painkillers
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications (NSAIDs) can provide fast, convenient relief from neuropathic pain. However, they are often not effective when used without other treatments and therapies.
Neuropathy Treatment and Management in Texas
The pain and discomfort of neuropathy and the loss of sleep, anxiety, and depression that can accompany it, can be challenging to handle.
At Texas Pain Physicians, our pain management specialists will work day and night to find the best course of treatment and management for you.
Please give us a call or book your appointment online today.
Why You Need A Pain Management Specialist
Everyone needs a primary care physician.
But when you have pain symptoms, especially chronic pain symptoms, your primary care doctor should refer you to a pain management specialist.
What are their qualifications?
Pain management specialists, also known as pain doctors and pain specialists, have over nine years of medical training, including:
- four years of medical school
- four years of experience practicing medicine in a field such as anesthesiology, physical medicine, and rehabilitation
- one-year fellowship in the field of pain medicine
A qualified pain management specialist is board-certified in pain management with one of the following boards:
- The American Board of Anesthesiology
- The American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (also known as The American Board of Neurology)
- The American Board of Psychiatry
What medical care do they provide?
Pain management specialists are doctors with special training to evaluate, diagnose, prevent, and treat chronic and acute pain. They provide short and long-term pain care.
Types of Pain They Treat
1. Tissue pain from tissue damage
Tissue damage pain can be caused by chronic conditions such as arthritis and musculoskeletal injuries from impact and force (ex: falling and getting hit).
2. Nerve pain from nervous system disease
Nervous system diseases such as stroke, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis can cause nerve pain.
3. Tissue and nerve pain
Injuries and degeneration cause tissue and nerve pain. Examples are back and neck pain from herniated disc pain from spinal stenosis, and knee pain from injuries.
What do they do that primary care physicians can’t do?
1. Administer diagnostic tests to identify the cause of pain and treat pain at its source.
2. Administer fast-acting pain-relieving procedures like therapeutic nerve blocks.
3. Coordinate with specialists in other fields, including physical and psychological therapy or rehabilitation, to create comprehensive treatment plans.
4. Prescribe effective treatments and medications to manage, prevent, and suppress all types of pain.
5. Coordinate with a network of health professionals to enact the most effective pain management plan possible.
Where do they practice medicine?
Pain management specialists generally meet patients in medical offices or clinics. They perform surgeries and other procedures in hospitals (inpatient) and out of hospitals (outpatient).
The Texas Pain Management Specialists
At Texas Pain Physicians, our priority is to improve your quality of life.
If you are suffering from the emotional and physical challenges of chronic or acute pain, please give us a call at (972) 636-5727 or book your appointment online today.
How Pain Specialists Manage and Treat Herniated Disc Pain
Pain from a herniated disc can be mild and easy to handle, moderate and distracting, or severe enough to send you straight to a doctor.
It can hit suddenly and resolve in a few days. It can be constant or chronic and last for months or longer.
Doctors specialized in pain management recommend treating herniated disc pain with conservative, non-surgical treatments. They may recommend surgery only after all other treatments have failed.
The Three Types of Herniated Discs
1. Contained Herniation (bulging disc)
With this type of herniation, there is generally no pain or mild pain.
Bulging discs occur when pressure between the vertebrae pinches the disc, forcing it to bulge. When there is pain, it comes from the bulging disc putting pressure on nearby spinal nerves.
2. Non-Contained Herniation (severe bulging disc)
This severe disc herniation generally causes severe back pain.
It can also be associated with numbness, weakness, and tingling in the extremities from the extreme pressure on spinal nerves.
3. Sequestered herniation (disc rupture)
This type of herniation can cause intense pain and decreased mobility. It is also associated with numbness, weakness, and tingling in the extremities.
Disc ruptures can occur when non-contained herniations or severe bulging discs go untreated. As pressure between the vertebrae builds up, it eventually overloads the discs, forcing them to rupture.
Where They Occur in the Body
Most herniated discs are in the neck and lower back.
Lumbar pain (lower back)
Sciatica or leg pain is the most common symptom associated with herniated discs in the lower back.
Patients describe sharp, burning, or radiating pain down the lower back, through the buttock, and down the leg (pain travels through the sciatic nerve).
Herniated lumbar discs can also cause numbness and muscle weakness in the foot and ankle.
Cervical herniated disc (neck)
Depending on the location of the herniated disc, pain can present in the neck, shoulder, arm, and hand. The pain from cervical herniated discs can last for days, weeks, months or longer, and be constant or chronic.
When a herniated disc puts too much pressure on cervical nerves, patients can experience tingling, numbness, and weakness in the deltoid muscle (shoulder muscle), biceps, wrist muscles, hands, and triceps.
Thoracic Spine (upper back)
Disc herniations in the upper back are less common and rarely cause pain. When there is pain, it presents in the upper back and chest.
Pain Treatments for Them
Pain management specialists typically begin herniated disc treatment with rest and NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs).
Medications
Depending on the severity of the pain, medication may make it easier for patients to tolerate physical therapy.
- OTC NSAIDs like aspirin and ibuprofen (recommended for mild to moderate pain)
- oral narcotic agents (prescribed for severe pain)
- oral steroids (prescribed to treat severe pain and reduce inflammation)
Home and Non-M.D. Treatments
These are treatments that don’t require a pain management doctor’s expertise.
When applied for 4-6 weeks, these treatments can help reduce pain and discomfort. Applying more than one treatment at once may achieve better results.
- Heat and cold therapy
- Moderate physical activity
- Chiropractic
- Moderate exercise
- Changing sleep positions
- physical therapy
- Myofascial release and/or massage
Therapeutic Injections
Pain management specialists may recommend therapeutic injections if conventional therapies and medications don’t work or provide relief soon enough.
Therapeutic injections can relieve pain for days, weeks, and even months, which buys time for conservative, non-surgical treatments to work.
Two commonly used therapeutic injections:
- epidural injections: Used to reduce inflammation and provide extended pain relief.
- nerve blocks: Used to diagnose the source of the neck pain and to provide extended pain relief.
Herniated Disc Treatment in Texas
If you have been diagnosed with a herniated disc or think you may have one, Texas Pain Physicians can help. We have offices in Houston, Dallas, and a dozen other locations across Texas.
Give us a call or book an appointment online and start your pain-free journey today!
Can’t Get Pain Relief At Home? 5 Benefits of Interventional Pain Management
Are you frustrated with at-home pain management therapies and techniques that aren’t working? Perhaps you’ve gotten some pain relief from them, but not enough.
Yes, stretching, heat and cold therapies, breathing exercises, OTC painkillers, and other conservative, DIY treatments can relieve acute and chronic pain.
But when you’ve tried these things and pain continues to interfere with your life, it may be time to try something new.
What is interventional pain management?
Interventional pain management is about diagnosing and treating pain-related disorders using a multi-disciplinary approach.
This approach involves more than one healthcare professional coordinating their efforts in relieving, reducing, and managing patients’ pain symptoms.
The Benefits of Interventional Pain Management
Interventional pain management can improve your quality of life. Here’s how:
1. Fast-Working Pain Relief
At-home treatments can take a long time to reduce or relieve pain. But interventional treatment such as steroid injections can provide immediate relief.
2. Long-Term Pain Management
Imagine taking one trip to your pain management specialist for a treatment procedure that gives you months of pain relief.
That’s what minimally invasive treatments like Botox treatment for migraines and steroid injections for back pain can do.
Compare that one-and-done peace of mind to daily (if not hourly) dosing with over-the-counter and narcotic pain medications.
3. A Medical Team Treating Your Pain
Interventional pain management applies a team approach to treating pain. Having a team to treat your pain gives you an important advantage:
- Input from more expert medical opinions means a better chance of successful treatment.
And you are the most important team member. No decision is made without your input and cooperation as a patient.
“Who exactly is on the team?” you ask. Your primary care physician will cooperate with one or more of the following health care professionals:
- Anesthesiologists
- Physiatrists
- Physical therapists
- Occupational therapists
- Internists
- Nurses
- Psychologists and psychiatrists
- Physiatrists
4. Safer, Drug-Free Treatment Options
Opioid pain medications can provide pain relief for many people. But these medications can also be risky and ineffective at treating pain.
By contrast, interventional pain management uses many non-drug treatment techniques to relieve pain, including:
Pain management physicians may prescribe one of these minimally invasive techniques or combine them with other treatments.
Compared with narcotics, these treatments have fewer or no side effects.
5. Pain Relief at the Source of the Pain
Minimally invasive intervention techniques such as epidural steroid injection and radiofrequency ablation stop pain at its source.
And the benefits can extend beyond pain relief. For instance, an epidural steroid injection is a treatment for many forms of lower back and leg pain. It relieves pain by reducing swelling and inflammation around the nerve roots in the lower back.
Reduced swelling and inflammation improve mobility and function in the lower back and legs. This improved functioning allows patients to participate in physical therapy and rehabilitation programs.
Get the pain treatment that’s right for you.
Are you suffering from chronic or acute pain? At Texas Pain Physicians, our caring doctors are here to help. We will partner with you to devise a safe, innovative, and effective interventional pain treatment plan that works for you.
Give us a call today at 972 636-5727, or schedule your appointment online today!
Is Therapeutic Nerve Block A Pain Treatment for You? 7 “Need to Knows”
Maybe your pain medication isn’t working anymore. Maybe you got tired of the side effects and stopped taking it. Or maybe you don’t want to take pain meds at all.
Whatever the case, you need pain relief ASAP. A therapeutic nerve block may be the answer.
Here are 7 things to know about therapeutic nerve blocks:
1. What they are.
A pain-relief and healing therapy doctors employ as an alternative to pain medication. Therapeutic nerve blockers provide extended pain relief and assist the body’s healing process by reducing nerve irritation.
2. What areas of the body they can treat:
- head: forehead, face, eyelids, scalp, upper jaw
- neck (all of the neck)
- back: middle back, lower back, upper back, pelvis
- arms: shoulders, armpits, arms, elbows, wrists
- hands (all of the hands)
3. What types of pain do therapeutic nerve blocks treat?
Arthritis pain or pain from injury:
Steroid injections with local anesthetic into the facet joints or vertebrae to help treat joint pain.
Childbirth, neck, back, or leg pain:
Steroid or other medication and local anesthetic injected into the epidural area are known as ‘epidurals.’ These injections are often used during labor to ease the pain of childbirth. They are also used to treat severe nerve pain in the neck, back, and legs.
For buttocks, lower back, and upper leg pain:
Steroid and local anesthetic injections into the sacroiliac joint, the area between the pelvic bones in the lower back.
For arthritis pain in the shoulder:
Steroid and anesthetic injections in the suprascapular area of the shoulder. They treat arthritis pain in the shoulder that isn’t treatable with direct, in-joint injections.
For chronic headaches:
Steroid and local anesthetic injections into the occipital nerves in the back of the head to relieve headaches and other types of nerve pain.
4. How long they relieve pain.
The pain relief from nerve block injections typically lasts from 1 to 2 weeks.
Doctors may recommend several or more injections when you face an extended recovery time from injury or need to buy time while looking for a permanent pain management solution.
5. What the procedure is like.
Nerve block procedures are performed on an outpatient basis and should take less than 30 minutes.
An anesthetic and anti-inflammatory or steroid are injected near the nerves sending pain signals to the brain.
Pain Management in Texas
At Texas Pain Physicians, our board-certified pain management doctors will address your pain at the source. They will map out a unique pain treatment strategy for you.
Please call us today at (972) 636-5727 or click here to schedule an appointment.
How to Stop Night Cramps in Your Legs
Being jolted out of a peaceful slumber by the intense pain and discomfort of leg cramps is shocking.
More often than not, leg cramps or muscle spasms hit the calf muscles (calf muscle cramps are sometimes referred to as “charley horses”). But cramps hit the front and back of the thigh muscles, too.
Here’s how to stop, or at least cut down on night leg cramps.
1. Stretch your legs.
Unstretched muscles may be more prone to cramping, especially for people over 50, who report more nighttime leg cramps than younger people. This is likely due to muscles shortening with age.
If you have a few free minutes, loosen up your calf, hamstring, and quad muscles with some stretches during the day or before bed.
2. Be as active as possible.
Underused muscles may be more prone to cramping.
Work, school, and other obligations keep us on tight schedules. But getting in a bit of exercise in your free moments during the week may keep the cramps away.
If you only have time at night, try to do some light exercise just before bed, along with your stretching. Just make sure not to overdo it. Overstimulating muscles causes muscles fatigue, which can cause leg cramps.
3. Stay hydrated and replenish electrolytes.
Experts think dehydration can cause cramps. Try to drink at least eight 8 ounce glasses of water a day.
When you sweat from exercise or any strenuous activity, drink extra water and eat something healthy to replenish electrolytes.
Healthy foods and drinks like bananas, watermelon, milk and yogurt, and coconut water can help restore your electrolyte balance.
Also, try to avoid having too many drinks that contribute to dehydration and electrolyte imbalance, such as coffee and alcoholic beverages.
4. Take a warm shower or apply heat before bed.
Sore, tired leg muscles are more prone to cramping. Taking a warm or hot shower or applying heat to them before bed can loosen and relax muscles and prevent night cramps.
5. Loosen your bedding.
If your sheets are tucked in so that your feet and legs can’t move freely, they are too tight. Loosen your bedding so that you can stretch out and shift comfortably.
6. Wear comfortable or orthopedic shoes.
Go easy on your legs by wearing comfortable shoes or even orthopedic shoes when you can. When your shoes don’t provide arch support, your leg muscles compensate, leading to muscle fatigue and cramps.
Pain Management at Texas Pain Physicians
Do you or someone you know have nighttime leg cramps? Would you like to schedule an appointment with a top-rated, board-certified pain management specialist? Please get in touch with us today at (972) 636-5727.