FAQs
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Frequently Asked Questions
General
- Chronic pain is long standing pain which persists beyond its usual healing period, typically taken as 3 months.
- It is different from acute pain eg pain from injury which develops quickly and doesn’t last long.
- Chronic pain is a complex condition and may be debilitating. It may affect people so that they are not able to carry out their daily activities normally or enjoy life.
- Chronic pain is best managed using a combination of different approaches.
- Together with options provided by your doctor, other options such as regular exercise, weight control, balanced diet, reducing alcohol and caffeine intake as well as good stress management and sleep hygiene all help you with your pain management.
- This can be variable due to individual circumstances; however, we will work together to get you to where you want as quickly as possible.
- Intervention is one of the treatment options. However, not everyone would need one. It is important to note that interventions are part of a package of the treatment plan and would be unsuitable for widespread pain We will explore all options to tailor a suitable plan for you.
Nerve pain
- In normal circumstances, when an injury happens, pain signals arise and these signals travel in a nerve to the spinal cord and then the brain. The brain knows where the nerve signal arises, and so we feel pain in the body.
- However, if the nerves are damaged, then pain signal can arise from the nerve itself and the pain signal is transmitted without any nerve damage. This is called neuropathic or nerve pain.
- Treatment of nerve pain is usually different to acute tissue injury pain.
- Medications used in neuropathic pain tend to belong to either an antidepressant or antiepileptic category, dose of which is different to its use as an antidepressant/ anticonvulsant.
- Opioids particularly conventional opioids like codeine, morphine, oxycodone/ OxyContin, fentanyl lozenges/ patches should not be used to treat neuropathic pain as they can make pain worse and harder to treat.
Nerve blocks
- A nerve block are procedures that can help manage pain by targeting the specific nerve supplying a specific area of the body.
- Nerve blocks can be temporary but can also be long lasting.
- Please discuss the use of this with your healthcare provider
- Diagnosing a problem
- Treatment of pain condition varies depending on where the pain arises.
- If after a short duration of local anaesthetic injection, the pain stops for some hours, the pain is likely to be coming from the peripheral nerve.
- However, if the pain persists, the pain may be originating from the brain and spinal cord.
- Treating a problem
- When pain is relieved with a short duration local anaesthetic. we can prolong its efficacy especially in patients with chronic pain by use of steroid or radiofrequency ablation.
- Nerve blocks are used in conjunction with other treatment modalities such as medications, psychological and physical therapies and are usually deferred until less invasive options are trialled.
- Like all procedures, nerve blocks carry risks. However, compared with many procedures, nerve blocks are relatively safe.
- Nerve blocks have small risks of causing bleeding and infection. The medication given may also spill into other areas unexpectedly.
- Sometimes healthcare providers may hit the wrong nerve during the procedure, but this procedure is always cross verified and done under direct imaging guidance.
- Widespread pain such as that with fibromyalgia, generalised arthritis pain affecting multiple joints are not usually managed with nerve blocks.
- Most cancer pain are also not usually managed with nerve blocks.