Pain Medicine
The goal of treatment by the NENA Division of Pain Medicine includes management of a patient’s painful symptoms, restoration of function, and improvement in the patient’s quality of life. This is accomplished in the collaborative environment of New England Neurological Associates that offers treatment suited to each patient. The NENA Division of Pain Medicine consists of specialists with advanced training in the evaluation and treatment of a variety of painful conditions. Pain specialists are physicians who most commonly begin training in anesthesiology and physiatry, complete a Fellowship in Pain Medicine, and then focus on treating patients with pain. NENA patients experiencing pain benefit from development of a treatment plan that is the result of collaboration among specialists in Pain Medicine, Neurology, Neurosurgery, Orthopaedic Spine Surgery, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Rheumatology, Psychology, and Psychiatry.
Why See a Specialist?
The pain specialist can play a number of important roles in the evaluation and treatment of a patient’s pain. As a first step, the pain specialists may complete a workup and initiate the entire treatment, or may collaborate with other specialists, or direct patients to another specialty when appropriate. The pain specialist can offer service following assessment by neurosurgery for non-surgical management of spine pain, such as a disc herniation or spinal stenosis. For example, most patients with disc herniation will not require surgery and can be treated with physical therapy, medications and injections. Further, when a specific procedure is needed, such as an injection, a referral may be made to the pain specialist for an evaluation and, when indicated, a follow-up procedure. An appropriate referral to the pain division would be a patient with persistent pain who has failed to respond to standard treatment. Our pain physicians work in conjunction with other specialists at NENA to foster a multidisciplinary approach to manage the complexities of the patient in pain.
Conditions Treated
NENA pain medicine specialists treat a variety of conditions, including chronic back and neck pain related to degenerative disc disease, sciatica, herniated discs, spinal stenosis, neuropathic pain such as diabetic neuropathy, peripheral neuropathy, reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD) or complex regional pain syndrome, and pain due to shingles. The specialists may treat pain related to vertebral compression fractures with newer interventional techniques, such as kyphoplasty.
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