There is no point in continuing with injections after injections when they do not work! There is no reason that you have to subject yourself to monthly or quarterly failed injections. Overall, if any injection that fails to offer more than 50% relief and does not last more than 6 weeks need not be repeated.
At our Greenville office, we share office space with WeCare Family Health and Urgent Care, Dr. Martin’s psychiatric practice. Both these practices offer non-procedural medical and psychological options that may be needed for your comprehensive care. Dr. Thiyaga will facilitate your care through associated providers at our office.
Sometimes, you may need outside referrals to consult a spine surgeon, chiropractor, or physical therapist. Physical therapy could be arranged closer to your home or work so that you don’t travel long distances. These referrals will be made upon need and request by our providers.
There are a number of aspects to medication management, all of which are focused on making sure that medications are used appropriately. Keeping track of all of the medications currently in use by a patient is an important part of medication management. This can include creating printed lists describing medications, their dosages, and how they are being used. These lists can be kept in patient charts and provided to patients to help them track the drugs they use and understand why various medications are being prescribed.
Monitoring medication administration is also key. Medications usually need to be taken in specific doses at set intervals. Missing doses or timing doses incorrectly can cause complications. Medication management can include everything from using devices that issue reminders to patients to take their medications to fill pill cases for patients and marking the lid of each compartment to indicate when the contents need to be taken.
Another part of medication management involves checking for harmful drug interactions and confirming that patients follow directions for taking drugs. This includes ensuring that patients on medications with known harmful interactions are not provided with prescriptions for conflicting medications. It also includes reminding patients about whether or not drugs need to be taken with food and warning patients about potential side effects of medications such as fatigue, hunger, or an altered level of consciousness that might disrupt their activities.
We can’t promise to cure you, but we can promise that we’ll do everything we can to help you manage your chronic pain. Together, we’ll explore treatment options to reduce your pain levels, from frequency to severity and duration of flares. You may find that pain levels improve the most after you spend time reconditioning and increasing your daily activities.
We prescribe a variety of medications as part of pain management. We select non-opioids as baseline pain medication for round-the-clock use and consider opioids for occasional breakthrough pain. Higher doses of opioids are generally reserved for cancer pain patients with a limited lifespan.
Spine & Pain Care Center 