What is Pain Medicine?
The Iowa Clinic’s pain management specialists are specially trained in helping prevent pain and treat a variety of disorders that may be causing you pain. Whether you suffer from temporary or chronic pain due to illness or injury, we can help you find the best individualized treatment plan to deal with it.
Pain medication requires thoughtful care and monitoring from your pain management physician. There are a variety of medications and strengths to help ease kinds of pain, and each person responds differently. We can help you through your pain medications to ensure you have the right prescriptions to help relief, limit side effects and control breakthrough pain.
For patients with complex medical history and a variety of pain syndromes, treatment can be complex and confusing. Our team of providers help thousands of patients find pain relief every year so you can get back to doing what you love most. We help with a variety of options, including drug treatments, pain management, injection therapies, spinal cord stimulators, and more. This type of specialist helps to reduce the need for unnecessary invasive procedures and pain medications.
Pain can come from anywhere. Whatever pain you are experiencing, there are treatments to help provide immediate relief and continuing care for pain conditions both short-term and long-term, including:
- Nerve, spine and spinal cord issues like degenerative disc disease, spinal stenosis and complications from osteoarthritis.
- Chronic pain conditions like migraines or tension headaches, peripheral neuropathy, shingles and spondylosis.
- Neck and back pain stemming from mechanical stress, sciatica, whiplash, trauma or workplace injury.
- Joint pain due to arthritis, degenerative joint disease, multiple sclerosis, osteoarthritis, and other common conditions.
- Chest and abdominal pain from pancreatitis, chronic constipation, inflammatory bowel disease and other stomach or abdominal organ issues.
Whether you suffer from back pain, neck pain, or a “can’t quite put my finger on it” kind of pain, a comprehensive assessment will get to the source. During your assessment, your provider will review your medical history and go over questions to determine your symptoms and other health concerns. Your provider may order certain tests, such as blood work or an MRI to help diagnose the pain.
Treatment options will look different for each patient, depending on the cause and condition of the pain. Your provider may recommend medications, certain therapeutic procedures, or surgery if it is appropriate for your condition. Many symptoms present similarly to one another, so it can take some time to diagnose the pain, depending on the condition you are suffering from, and the symptoms being displayed.
Talk with your healthcare provider about how pain medicine can benefit you.