Chronic Pain

>What is chronic pain?

>Chronic pain is pain that continues for more than three months. It doesn't ease off or get better even after treatment of the underlying problem.

>Chronic pain can be debilitating, and when pain never goes away, it starts interfering with your activity levels. It can even contribute to other pain issues from compensating and overcompensating. You put excess strain on another part of your body to protect the area causing your chronic pain.

>Pain is a vital function because it alerts you to physical damage. If you weren't prompted into action by wanting to stop the pain, you might neglect wounds and injuries. That could lead to infection, poor healing, or even death.

>When you have chronic pain, it's not usually performing this kind of vital function. The constant joint pain felt with arthritis, for instance, serves no useful purpose; it just makes you miserable. It also makes you feel less able to keep moving, making the problem worse.

>If you have neuropathy, there may not be any tissue damage at all. The sensations of pain that you feel are instead coming from damaged nerves.

>What conditions cause chronic pain?

>Many conditions can cause chronic pain. Cancer often causes severe, worsening pain, for example. You could also suffer chronic pain following surgery or trauma. Conditions, where chronic pain is one of the primary symptoms, include:

• >Fibromyalgia
• >Peripheral neuropathy
• >Arthritis
• >Cervical radiculopathy
• >Back pain
• >Myofascial pain syndrome
• >Sciatica
• >Whiplash injuries
• >Spinal stenosis
• >Degenerative disc disease
• >Trigeminal neuralgia
• >Migraines
• >Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS)

>CRPS – also known as reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD) – is a chronic pain condition most often affecting one of your limbs, usually after an injury or trauma. CRPS symptoms vary in severity and duration and can cause significant disability.

>How is chronic pain treated?

>The first stage in finding the best treatment for your chronic pain is to discover the root cause. Dr. Fanaee has considerable experience pinpointing the reasons you have persistent pain, even when other physicians have been unable to offer a diagnosis.

>Your treatment is likely to start with conservative measures, which are successful in addressing most causes of chronic pain. Your personalized program could include:

• >Physical therapy
• >Chiropractic
• >Pain medication
• >Antiseizure medication
• >Tricyclic antidepressants
• >Stem cell therapy
• >Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy
• >Epidural injections
• >Nerve blocks
• >Joint injections
• >Botox® injections (for migraine)

>If these measures don't give you sufficient relief, Dr. Fanaee is licensed to prescribe medical marijuana. He also specializes in using minimally invasive state-of-the-art interventions such as radiofrequency ablation, kyphoplasty, and spinal cord stimulation.

>You can help yourself by making healthy changes to your diet, losing weight, quitting habits like smoking and drinking, finding ways to keep active, and managing stress.