What is the difference between Pain Management and Pain Medicine clinics?

Answer 1

These terms can be confusing, and they are used by different healthcare providers to mean different forms of treatment. Some Pain Management Clnics are what chiropractic physicians call their clinics, based on the theory that they work towards relieving pain. There are Pain Management Clnincs which provide purely physical therapeutic and some eastern martial arts treatments, others perform acupuncture and naturopathic treatments. There are some that combine physical therapeutic treatments with psychological counseling and some medications. There are others that provide medications without interventions, and there are some that provide interventions such as epidual injections and stellate ganglion blocks without medication treatment at all. All of these are pain clinics and can use the terms pain management or pain medicine.

Most true pain management clnics provide interventional techniques, such as spinal and nerve injections, and intrathecal pumps and dorsal column stimulators, but they also provide supportive medications and physical therapy. There are some that have psychologist associated with or on staff, and acupuncture specialists, as well as chiropractors, and nutritional counselors.

Proper pain management combines all the disciplines to meet the needs of the whole patient, not just individual needs.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

I don't quite know what your point is, but 'pain management' is for people who have to deal with chronic pain over a sustained period of time, either during a long recovery from trauma and/or surgery, or a condition for which a mechanical repair such as surgery isn't possible or practical. Your family doctor/group/GP or clinic will only prescribe so many narcotic pain medications before telling you to see a specialist. Good pain management specialists know what's available on the pharmaceutical market (it's constantly evolving), what works best for certain conditions, and are willing to get to know a patient and how to adjust medications and dosages to enable them to function and monitor them to ensure that the meds are being properly applied to acheive the desired objective. I didn't plan to breeak my back and wish I never did. but for more than twenty years I've had to deal with doctors and surgeons and 'pain management', and have encountered everything from pill mills who hand out oxycontin like candy to surgeons who'll cut you open and send you home with tylenol and a prescription for physical therapy. Like any specialization there are good pain management doctors and bad ones. If you ever really need one, you'll learn the difference.

Answer 4

I worked in a pain management clinic. We did injections, could install pain pumps (which filtered out morphine through the spinal canal), injected cement into the spinal vertebrae to fix compression fractures, biofeedback, that's all I can think of right now. A pain medication clinic just manages pain medications. Hope this helps...

Answer 5

Extremely good question, hope we get some good answers