Pain Management
Chronic pain affects an estimated 86 million American adults to some degree. Pain disables more people than cancer or heart disease and costs more than both combined.
People develop pain for many reasons. Pain from a recent surgery, injury or medical illness is called acute pain. In many cases, this pain can be managed immediately and will usually get better in just a short time. For more serious pain, your primary care doctor may ask a pain medicine doctor to help manage your pain.
If your pain persists after the healing process should be over, you might have what is called chronic pain. If the current treatment you are receiving stops working or your pain begins to get worse over time, your primary care doctor may suggest you see a pain medicine doctor.
Cancer pain is another condition that can be managed by a pain medicine doctor while the patient continues to receive treatment for various types of cancer. The pain can be due to cancer surgery or treatment procedures, including radiation therapy and chemotherapy, or the tumor itself. Effective pain management is an essential part of comprehensive cancer care.
At Claxton-Hepburn, our Board-Certified Pain Management Specialist, Juan-Diego Harris, MD, offers a comprehensive range of services for patients with acute, chronic and cancer pain problems. Chronic pain can affect your body and psyche in adverse ways. When you are in pain, your heart rate increases, your blood pressure rises, and you breathe faster. Constant discomfort can cause you to become sedentary or gain weight or injure other parts of the body because you limp or move awkwardly to try to decrease the pain. Chronic pain can also lead to loss of employment and income, to depression, fear, isolation and anxiety.
Dr. Harris has experience in the following interventional pain management procedures:
- Alternative holistic approaches to pain management
- Placement of spinal cord stimulators
- Insertion of temporary and permanent epidurals
- Lumbar, thoracic and cervical epidural steroid injections under fluoroscopic guidance
- Facet/medial branch block/diagnostic injections
- Facet radiofrequency ablation of al spinal levels
- Sympathetic blocks
- Use of radiofrequency for the management of other pain syndromes
- Pain syndrome and bupivacaine injections under fluoroscopic guidance
- Myofascial trigger point injections
- Use of botulism toxin for management of a variety of myofascial painful conditions
- Other peripheral nerve blocks
The Pain Management Program at Claxton-Hepburn offers hope and a supportive environment for people suffering from debilitating pain. Because chronic pain is a complex problem, Claxton-Hepburn takes a multidisciplinary approach in devising patient treatment plans. During an initial visit Dr. Harris will evaluate, and diagnose your painful condition and build a customized treatment program for you. Dr. Harris sees patients on a physician referral basis only. Some patients experience the complete end of pain, but this level of success is not possible for everyone. Patients whose pain cannot be eliminated often find their pain significantly reduced.
Pain Management Suite
3 Lyon Place, Suite 100
Ogdensburg, NY 13669
315-394-6470