More than 30% of the world’s population lives with chronic pain that changes how they move through life. If you have back, neck, or nerve pain, you might find it difficult to lift groceries, turn your head while driving, sit through a workday, or sleep through the night. Pain also wears you down emotionally, especially when it lingers for months or years.
At Advanced Pain Management in Arizona, we understand how frustrating chronic pain feels. Many patients come to us worried that surgery is their only choice, but, in many cases, it isn’t. Nonsurgical pain treatments can reduce inflammation, calm irritated nerves, improve movement, and help you return to daily life with more confidence.
The best treatment depends on where your pain starts, what causes it, and how it affects your body. That’s why we take time to evaluate your symptoms, review your history, and create a care plan that fits your needs. Here we cover some potential approaches.
Physical therapy often plays a major role in nonsurgical pain care. Its value is often underestimated, but it has numerous benefits. For example, a targeted therapy plan stretches tight muscles, strengthens weak areas, and improves posture and body mechanics.
Too much rest can stiffen muscles and make pain harder to manage. Physical therapy promotes blood flow, delivering oxygen, nutrition, and healing cells to painful areas.
For back and neck pain, therapy helps support the spine and prevent pain flare-ups. For nerve pain, gentle movement improves flexibility and reduces pressure around irritated nerves. Physical therapy also teaches you safer ways to bend, lift, sit, and move.
Medication doesn’t cure every pain condition, but it can help reduce symptoms while your body heals or while other treatments begin to work. Depending on your diagnosis, we may recommend:
The goal isn’t to cover up pain and send you on your way; we use medication carefully as part of a wider plan.
Epidural steroid injections can help when inflamed nerves in the spine cause back and leg or neck and arm pain. During this treatment, we place anti-inflammatory medicine near the irritated nerve in the spine.
Epidural steroid injections often help people with conditions like:
The injections can reduce swelling around the nerve and ease sharp, shooting, or radiating pain.
Relief varies from person to person. Some patients feel improvement within a few days, while others notice gradual relief over a couple of weeks. Epidural injections can also help patients participate more comfortably in physical therapy.
Facet joints sit between the bones of the spine and help you bend and twist. Arthritis, injury, or wear and tear can irritate these joints and cause back or neck pain.
Facet joint injections deliver medicine directly to these small joints. They reduce inflammation and help us determine whether the facet joints are causing your pain. If facet injections help but the pain returns, we may discuss other longer-lasting treatments.
Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) uses heat energy to quiet small nerves that send pain signals from arthritic joints in the spine. RFA doesn’t remove the joint or change the structure of the spine. Instead, it interrupts pain signals so you can move with less discomfort.
RFA often helps patients with chronic neck or back pain from facet joint arthritis. Relief can last for several months or longer, depending on how your body responds.
Before RFA, we usually perform diagnostic nerve blocks to ensure we’ve identified the correct source of pain.
A nerve block places numbing medicine, sometimes combined with anti-inflammatories, near a specific nerve or group of nerves. If your pain improves after a block, we know that the targeted nerve likely plays a role in your symptoms.
SCS uses a small device that sends signals to the spinal nerves. These signals confuse the pain nerves, so you may sense mild tingling or a lack of sensation.
SCS is for people with pain conditions that no other treatment has helped because it involves implanting the device near your spine.
We perform SCS trials before permanent implantation to ensure the technology offers you significant pain relief.
Lifestyle changes are vital to effective pain management. Walking, swimming, gentle yoga, and simple home exercises can support spine health without adding too much strain. Improved sleep and stress reduction are also essential.
Advanced Pain Management offers nonsurgical treatments that focus on the source of pain, not just the symptoms. Call us or complete our online form to benefit from our cutting-edge services. We have offices in Tucson and throughout the Phoenix, Arizona, area.
