What are the Most Common Causes of Chronic Pain?
There is any number of conditions that can cause chronic pain, which is classified as pain that occurs daily for over three months, and chief among them are:
- Arthritis
- Degenerative disease
- Low back pain
- Fibromyalgia
- Peripheral neuropathy
- Structural problems
- Old injuries
It’s hard to underestimate the toll that chronic pain exacts, both in terms of your mental and physical health, which is why chronic pain is often associated with depression.
What is Pain Management?
The goal at Orthocenter is to restore your quality of life and offset the effects that chronic pain can have on your overall health. Pain has a way of hijacking your well-being, and the longer it goes unmanaged, the more far-reaching these effects are.
Pain management is simply the term used to describe the efforts your team at Orthocenter makes to find you relief and help you function more normally again, without the limitations that chronic pain can place on your life.
How is Chronic Pain Managed?
The answer to this depends upon the source of your chronic pain, but, rest assured, the team at Orthocenter has a number of tools in their pain management arsenal that are highly effective in putting an end to pain, including:
- Epidurals: As the starting point for most of the nerves in your body, your spine figures front and center when it comes to pain management. With an epidural injection, your doctor delivers steroids and a local anesthetic into the epidural space in your spine to quiet the nerves responsible for your pain.
- Radiofrequency Ablations: With a radiofrequency ablation (RFA), your orthopedic surgeon uses an electric current to create an adhesion on your nerve that blocks pain signals.
Both of these procedures are highly effective in addressing immediate pain and sometimes offer longer-term relief. For example, an RFA may provide relief for 6-12 months.
The doctors also use a combination of other pain management techniques to ensure long-term results, such as physical therapy and rehabilitation.
If you’re living in constant pain, the doctors at Orthocenter can help. Call one of their three New Jersey locations or use the online scheduling tool to request an appointment.
