Center for Medical Excellence, Inc.
Alternative Management
Alternative pain management is focused on giving you, the patient, greater choices in treatment by providing options that are less or non invasive. Alternative therapies for pain management may not work for everyone. For those of you that experience significant benefit, you will find them to be the solution you have been looking for. They can be a stand alone treatment, but they are commonly used in conjunction with other treatments. Whether the therapy is natural, holistic, or inherent in orientation, the effect can be long lasting and even permanent. Individual results may vary depending on your medical conditions. Below is a list of alternative pain management therapies and treatments that could prove beneficial in helping you find relief from your pain and a renewed quality of life.
Prolotherapy/Platelet Rich Plasma
Prolotherapy injections are a treatment option that relies on the body’s own natural healing process to strengthen painful ligaments, tendons, and joints. By injecting a proliferative fibroblastic solution into the affected areas at various points, the body produces an inflammatory response in tissues that in fact makes them stronger and creates more joint stability. More stability usually means less pain. This therapy works to naturally alleviate the root cause of chronic pain which frequently is joint instability. Platelet Rich Plasma uses growth factors isolated from your own blood and then injected into the problematic areas to stimulate new tissue regeneration and stability.
Massage Therapy
Through a variety of techniques (such as gentle, smooth, gliding strokes, or squeezing, rolling, and kneading muscles), massage therapy helps to relieve muscular tension, to reduce the presence of substances that generate and sustain pain, to improve joint range of motion, and to increase the production of endorphins. Medically supervised massage therapy can be focused on the painful area improved body mechanics and pain relief.
Biofeedback Therapy
In biofeedback therapy, patients learn to associate instinctive physical responses to painful symptoms in order to make proactive changes in behavior and/or response patterns to reduce pain and find relief. From monitoring perspiration and respiration to heart rate, a broad range of biofeedback methods may be administered to safely produce beneficial information on physical function that can lead to a positive change for better pain control.
Other options
In addition to the aforementioned, other options include modalities such as Acupuncture, Chiropractic Care, Yoga, Tai Chi, Qigong, Ice, Heat, TENS, and interferential stimulation therapy which may be utilized to improve pain control.