Orthopedic Pain Management
With our multidisciplinary approach to easing your pain, we help you find safe, effective treatments for our communities in East Central Indiana and West Central Ohio.
Our pain management philosophy
The pain management team at Reid Health understands your orthopedic pain and takes its treatment seriously. Here, we start with a conservative approach to treatment, with lifestyle changes, physical therapy, and prescriptions for non-opioid medications whenever possible.
Did you know? Orthopedic pain can often be resolved without surgery or narcotic medications, which can become addictive for some people.
If those pain management options aren’t helpful, we have the experience needed to find you a more effective alternative.
Diagnosing your pain
At Reid Health Pain Management, we start your treatment by finding the root cause of your pain. By correctly diagnosing your pain, we’re able to more effectively manage both acute and chronic pain — sometimes eliminating it.
A diagnosis starts with a thorough physical examination and going over your detailed medical history. Our pain management specialists will ask about your past injuries, illnesses, medical conditions, and whether you‘ve experienced this pain before.
Depending on your symptoms, we might also order the following tests:
- Bloodwork
- Electromyography (EMG) testing, a test that records the electrical activity produced by your muscles
- Nerve conduction studies to see how well your nerves are working
- Orthopedic imaging, including MRI, ultrasound, and X-ray
Common sites for neck, back, and joint pain
The most common sites for musculoskeletal problems include orthopedic pain in the:
Pain can also be caused by conditions impacting your nervous system, such as fibromyalgia, neuropathy, or shingles — a more severe version of the virus that causes chickenpox.
Conservative options for pain
Pain management often follows a standard process, whether you seek back pain relief, neck pain relief, or pain relief in your fingers or toes. Depending on your diagnosis, you might start treatment with:
- Lifestyle changes: These include altering your diet, quitting smoking, and avoiding alcohol.
- Medications: Over the counter and prescription medications, including nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen or naproxen, might help.
- Physical therapy: Using hands-on techniques and guided exercises, you might regain or improve movement.
- Talk therapy: Structured, goal-oriented talk therapy might help you cope with chronic pain.
Pain relief injections
For more serious issues, your pain management specialist might recommend injections at the site of your pain. These treatments can provide relief for several weeks or months and might include:
- Epidural injections
- Hyaluronic joint injections
- Nerve block injections
- Steroid injections
Advanced options for severe pain
If your pain levels still haven’t improved after our more conservative efforts, we might refer you to an orthopedic surgeon to discuss surgically alleviating your pain.
These treatment options could include implanting a pain pump in your spine, which delivers pain medication directly to the spinal fluid and interrupts the pain signals sent from your vertebrae to your brain.
At Reid Health, our goal is to help you feel better again — and we’ll keep working until you do.