Pain Management

Insight from a global survey on its incidence revealed that a third of the population deals with pain daily. People living with unrelieved pain for a long time can have limited movement, reduced function, and a declined psychological state. Musculoskeletal pain or chronic pain can be cancer-related, a result of arthritis, injury (after an accident or surgery), or one of many other chronic painful conditions.

Pain management offers drug-free pain treatments for patients unable to get rid of their pain by surgery or pain-relieving medications.

Alternative pain treatments include platelet-rich plasma therapy, pain reprocessing therapy, laser therapy, and shockwave therapy that can speed up the healing process, reduce pain, and boost tissue regeneration.

Read more on pain management approaches that can be used to deal with your chronic pain and improve your quality of life.

What Is Pain Management?

Certain painful conditions like arthritis, disc herniation, and rotator cuff tears don’t respond well to surgery or anti-pain drugs. Patients still have pain despite their optimized therapy plan. Luckily, there are several pain management techniques that have been developed as natural alternatives to surgery and painkillers. 

Pain management offers patients non-surgical methods to alleviate pain without drugs, provoke the body’s healing process, and promote tissue repair. The goal is to improve the quality of life of patients with chronic pain and improve their mobility.

What Are The Types of Pain Management?

Pain management methods that can substitute surgery or drugs to minimize pain, reduce inflammation, and speed up cell regeneration include:

• Ultrasound-Guided Injections: Cortisone and hyaluronic acid are injected directly into a tendon or a joint to reduce pain. With the help of an ultrasound machine, your pain specialist will guide the injections to accurately target the deep painful structures.
• Heat Therapy: Applying heating devices to the afflicted area can improve circulation and soothe the pain. This is one of the simplest non-surgical ways to deal with chronic pain.

• Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) Therapy: Platelets are cells found in the plasma of your own blood. They promote healing and tissue repair. In PRP, your blood is withdrawn, and centrifuged to produce a “platelet-rich” plasma extract. The PRP extract is injected into the body part that hurts to improve healing, decrease inflammation, and relieve pain.
• Shockwave Therapy (SWT): This method uses high energy delivered by acoustic waves (shock waves) to promote the regeneration and healing of the bones, tendons, and other soft tissue.
• Perineural Injection Therapy (PIT): Perineural injections are injections containing a solution called dextrose. These are usually injected into the vertebral facet (spine) joints to treat chronic back pain and promote tissue healing.
• Cold Laser Therapy: Cold laser is used extensively in pain management. The light energy coming from a laser stimulates healing, reduces pain, and brings down inflammation in damaged tissue.
• Electrotherapy: This method delivers small electrical pulses to the painful areas of your body, promoting blood circulation, strengthening of the tissue, and pain relief.
• Acupuncture: Acupuncture has been an ancient traditional pain management method for centuries. Thin acupuncture needles inserted into the skin cause microinjuries that stimulate the body’s healing. They also effectively regulate the painful impulses to dampen chronic pain.
• Physical Therapy: Physical therapy is an essential part of any pain management and rehabilitative plan. The PT exercises help strengthen different muscle groups to improve mobility, improve posture, and reduce pain from inappropriate skeletal movement.

The choice of pain management methods depends on the type of your injury and characteristics of your pain. An experienced pain specialist is able to design a comprehensive pain management plan combining oral drug therapy with physical therapy or more advanced pain therapy (such as laser or shockwave therapy).

Effective pain management can help you regain your mobility and improve the quality of your life.

At Mya Care, you can connect for a Pain Management Consultation with the best hospitals and doctors worldwide. Our database includes hospitals in India, Germany, Spain, the UAE and UK.

Sources:

• Improving the Quality of Care Through Pain Assessment and Management.
• The Use of Low Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) For Musculoskeletal Pain - PMC
• Individual Differences in the Subjective Experience of Pain: New Insights into Mechanisms and Models - PMC
• Global Pain Index Report 4th edition – 2020 - GSK Consumer Healthcare

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