What is a Multi-Discipline Comprehensive Pain Management Center?

When people think of going to a pain center, they often think of going to simply receive pain medication like narcotics. This is a stereotype and unfortunately with the unprecedented rise in prescription drug abuse in the US over the past decade, one that will not go away anytime soon.

A true multi-disciplinary Comprehensive Pain Management Center includes much more than Medication Management. This includes treatments of Interventional Pain Management, Physical Therapy, Physiotherapy, Rehab, Chiropractic, Spinal Decompression Therapy, Manipulation Under Anesthesia, and potentially Naturopathic and/or psychologic methods of pain reduction. With the proper combination of pain management services patient outcomes can be maximized thereby allowing patients to return to work, do more social activities, and get back to living. Isn't that what it's all about?

Patients in pain are not the same and effective treatment should be individualized. If a patient comes in with 10/10 back pain, out of work, and having severe difficulty even walking, then most likely passive therapies such as ice, heat, electrical stimulation, along with pain medications and injection treatments would be initially implemented. Subsequently the acute pain would hopefully be reduced a substantial amount so that more active treatments including physical therapy can begin for further pain reduction.

If however the patient were experiencing chronic pain at 6/10 severity, it would potentially be prudent to start physical therapy for a couple weeks to see how well it works and then graduate to an injection if there was not substantial enough improvement.

There are significant benefits to offering the multi-disciplinary approach. Injections and physical therapy can lessen one's need for pain medication. Chiropractic manipulations can add pain relief and have been shown to be extremely effective in conjunction with physical therapy for acute low back pain. Spinal Decompression Therapy has been shown in numerous research studies to be effective for back, neck, arm, and leg pain and allow many patients to avoid surgery. It may not be simply one treatment that provides pain relief, rather, it could be the combination of two or three different disciplines.

Spine problems should not be loosely evaluated by providers. Many times patients have had several prior treatments, but no real detailed evaluation in collaboration with different providers.

Having medical providers from various training backgrounds treating patients in a coordinated fashion is the most modern and advanced method available in existence. As chiropractic doctors and naturopathic doctors receive more mainstream acceptance, medical and osteopathic doctors are recognizing the benefits of their discipline more and more. Good communication between doctors of various types (MD, DO, DC, NMD) appears to be very beneficial when dealing with back pain, neck pain, sciatica, radiculopathy, chronic headaches, and fibromyalgia.

A comprehensive collaborative approach encompassing multiple disciplines improves patient outcomes. The combination of treatments works well, and should be a consideration when deciding on which Pain Management Center is right for you.