If you ever had body injuries or chronic pains and visited orthopedic surgeons, then you might have heard about pain management as well. Here is everything a pain management specialist does for you.

Evaluate Your Pain

The main job of a pain management specialist is to evaluate and study your pain. If you have had chronic pain for a while now, and it’s not going away then you might need to go to a pain management specialist and give them the rundown of your pain.

Usually, if you are going through surgery for pain or injury you will be advised to go to a pain management specialist after the surgery if the pain still persists. From there, the specialist will analyze your history of the surgery, and injury and evaluate it.

Make A Treatment Plan

A pain management specialist is a medicine based only. The doctor will try to make a medical treatment plan after getting a good idea about your pain and injury. They can also prescribe other non-medical and non-surgical options like physical therapy, chiropractic therapy, massage therapy, water therapy, and more.

Pain management specialists are localized in the medical field only. Usually, if you are still in pain after a certain injury has healed, your doctor or surgeon will recommend you to go see a pain management specialist. The specialist will give you a treatment plan according to your symptoms and your prior history with the injury.

Cannot Perform Surgery

As mentioned above, pain management specialists are related to medical treatment only. They are not licensed to do surgeries on people suffering from chronic pains. They can only go as far as recommending medicines, and other non-medical treatments and if that doesn’t work, then they can further connect you with a surgeon which can help you with any sort of pain which is outside the scope of a pain management specialist.

Usually, surgeons and pain management specialists are linked together and they usually recommend the patient to one another, depending on the situation the patient is in and their degree of pain.

Can Ask Questions/History

Pain management specialists are allowed to ask you for a detailed body examination, which might include bone examination through X-Rays, CT scans, and MRI. They can also ask for your previous reports and blood work to make sure that they devise a treatment plan which will not alter the body chemistry of the patient.

They can also ask you certain questions about your pain injury, like the duration of the pain, how the injury occurred, if you take any supplements for bone strength, what your routine consists of if you do any strenuous exercises, what your diet is, and so on.

Qualities Of A Good Pain Management Specialist

Here are some qualities you should be looking for in a pain management doctor:

They need to be able to communicate with you. Communication and talking about different things can be quite relieving for the patient. They should be able to answer any questions or queries you have regarding your injuries or the treatment plan.
They should be experts. You shouldn’t experiment with amateur doctors especially if your case is something difficult and it needs an expert’s opinion. Try to look for a pain management specialist which has good reviews from people closest to you.
They should have sufficient training in their field. Usually, a good pain management specialist will have about 9 years of experience in the relevant field. It means that they have quite a lot of hands-on experience when it comes to dealing with pain and injury and treating them.
You want someone who is realistic. You don’t want to go to a doctor who will get your hopes up, only to have things go badly in the end. Try to go to a doctor who will lay out all of the possibilities, including the good and bad.

Conclusion

There you have it! Seeing a pain management doctor Woodbridge is a good idea especially if you suffer from a lot of pain because of previous injuries. The specialist will set you on the right path for your treatment and you will see the results very soon.