Pain Management
At the Pain Management Service at Newton-Wellesley Hospital we care for people with many types of pain, including acute pain that comes on suddenly and is caused by a specific injury or condition, chronic pain and cancer-related pain, which we treat alongside colleagues from Mass General Cancer Center at Newton-Wellesley
Outpatient Pain Management Services
We provide relief to patients who have pain caused by a number of conditions. We use a compassionate, team-based approach to diagnosing, relieving, and treating acute and chronic pain. We tailor our multimodal and multidisciplinary treatment plans to your unique condition and needs. Our top priority is to reduce or eliminate your pain and help you function as independently as possible.
Ambulatory Care Center
At our ambulatory care center, we coordinate care on-site with our surgical and physiatry colleagues at the Spine Center. In addition, in our state-of-the-art gym and aquatherapy pool, our NWH physical therapy experts will guide your improved physical function.
Inpatient Acute Pain Management Services
Our dedicated inpatient pain management team specifically responds to the needs of our hospitalized patients, providing safe and effective acute pain relief options that are individually tailored to each patient. Our Acute Inpatient Pain Service may also work with your primary care physician or surgeon to provide integrated and coordinated care. In addition, pre-surgical pain management consultations are available to help you optimize your post-operative pain care plan with your surgical providers. Please contact your surgeon for an electronic referral if you are interested in scheduling a pre-surgical pain management consultation.
Interdisciplinary Team Approach
Our interdisciplinary team provides image-guided interventional expertise, medication management consultations, a holistic approach to pain care and improved function, and behavioral approaches for pain relief. Mental, emotional, and spiritual issues can affect your pain and the healing process. Our behavioral health experts can work with you to overcome these issues and maximize your pain relief.
Pain Management Procedures
Our board-certified Pain Management Interventionalists perform advanced, image-guided diagnostic and therapeutic injection therapies for numerous pain conditions.
Diagnostic injections with local anesthetic provide temporary relief for typically less than 24 hours to aid in the diagnosis of the nerve, muscle, or joint causing your pain. Some diagnostic injections may provide additional long-term benefit thought to be secondary to a nerve “reset” or muscle release. Therapeutic injections may include the use of steroid, botox, radiofrequency, chemical neurolysis, etc. and may provide longer-term relief. The duration of relief may vary from person to person (ranging from hours to months to years relief depending on the procedure and individual response).
Available diagnostic and/or therapeutic procedural interventions (with or without ultrasound or x-ray guidance, as indicated) include, but are not limited to:
- Abdominal cutaneous nerve block
- Botox injection for migraine headaches
- Epidural blood patch
- Epidural steroid injection
- Genicular nerve block
- Hypogastric plexus block
- Ilioinguinal nerve block
- Joint injections (knee, hip, and shoulder)
- Lumbar puncture with fluoroscopy
- Lumbar sympathetic nerve block
- Obturator nerve block
- Occipital nerve block
- Piriformis muscle injection
- Pudendal nerve block
- Radiofrequency ablation (including “COOLIEF*”)
- Sacroiliac joint injection
- Sacrococcygeal joint injection (to the “ganglion of impar”)
- Sphenopalatine ganglion block
- Spinal cord stimulator trials (include dorsal root ganglion stimulator trials)
- Stellate ganglion block
- Transforaminal epidural/nerve root block
- Transversus abdominus plane block
- Trigger point injection
- Trigeminal nerve block