Spinal pain is one of the most common types of pain people experience as they age. Up to 80% of all adults have had back pain at some point in their lives, and as many as 70% will experience neck pain so severe that it interferes with their daily activities and quality of life.
Spinal pain is experienced primarily in the lower back and cervical area. When this type of pain occurs, knowing the cause and what comes next is critical to your healing and well being.
Spine pain management specialist Dr. Brandon Claflin of Oklahoma offers clear insight and understanding into the causes of spinal pain and why surgery often isn't the answer. A 2006 medical school graduate, Dr. Claflin specialized in physical medicine and rehabilitation before further specializing in interventional pain medicine.
According to Dr. Claflin, addressing spinal pain requires a detailed and focused history and assessment, beginning with determining whether an injury or new activities preceded the onset of pain. An in-depth physical exam reveals changes in range of motion and mobility and may suggest nerve damage. Additional tests and imaging studies can help pinpoint the pain or other disease processes at work.
Pain is at times notoriously difficult to isolate. For example, referred pain is pain felt from an injury or insult to the body, but not felt at the site of the injury. You may have injured your wrist but feel sensations in your fingers. Spinal pain is similar. You may feel pain in your back from a slipped disc, but you may just as easily feel it down your leg.
Spinal pain can come on very suddenly or very slowly, it can be a dull ache or a very sharp and sudden pain, and a variety of potential causes exist.
Your back is a mass of muscle, vertebral bone, and nerves, providing you and your doctors with many possible sources of pain. As Dr. Claflin in Oklahoma points out, this is why it’s so important to try to determine “where someone’s pain is coming from. [A] detailed history is important.”
If you’re a weekend warrior, a new activity or sport may have tipped from tight muscles or strained back into pain. Bulging spinal discs are at times a source of pain. This is when the discs that provide a cushion between your vertebrae bulge out of the space between vertebrae. A herniated disc – a disc whose soft inner mass is spilling out of a crack in the tougher outer cartilage – can be another source of pain. It could easily be compressing a nerve.
Vertebrae that are out of alignment can also be pain sources. Arthritis in the spine is common as we age, and spinal stenosis – the narrowing of the space through which your spinal cord and nerves run – can be utterly debilitating.
Generally, more conservative treatment is the right way to start addressing spinal pain. Because the spine protects the spinal cord, the primary driver of all movement and sensation in your body, doctors typically want to start with the least intrusive treatments first to address pain issues.
These treatments might begin with physical therapy, mindfulness and meditation, and referral to a mental health specialist to augment non-interventional pain management techniques.
Additional treatment options might consist of lifestyle changes, injection-based treatments, alternative treatments like laser therapy, biofeedback, or electrical nerve stimulation therapy, and finally pharmacological treatment.
Constant reassessment and re-evaluation is key to determining if a treatment is working. As Dr. Claflin notes from his Oklahoma clinic, “[If] the pain isn’t improving, we’ll order further diagnostic tests or consult with other specialists to see where we should regroup. We’re regrouping and reevaluating so we can continue to move forward.”
Because your spine protects your spinal cord and the nerves that branch off of the spinal cord, pain management specialists want to make sure that the right kind and dosage of pain medication is used. And the most powerful are not always the most effective – and most come with some risk.
Dr. Brandon Claflin of Oklahoma Interventional Spine and Pain points out that “The first line of
treatment is over-the-counter medications, like Tylenol or anti-inflammatory medications.” If patients continue to experience pain, Claflin says that “Muscle relaxers or non-narcotics may help with nerve pain, including common treatments for arms or herniated discs.”
The most powerful pain medications – the opiates – are also the most dangerous, and all medical professionals are careful about prescribing them. “Opiates are prescribed when absolutely necessary,” says Dr. Claflin, “[but] for short amounts of time and under discretion.”
Surgery should be resorted to when all other treatment options are not working – and only if surgical intervention is likely to effect a positive change. “It’s not something to be taken lightly,” notes Oklahoma’s Dr. Claflin. “You want to have all the facts.”
The surgery must have a likely outcome that will benefit a patient, he observes. “It starts with a conversation with patients to make sure they understand the true purpose of the surgery, what the risks of complication are, [and] the percentages of pain relief said surgery may provide.”
Surgery may not reduce the pain as much as a patient wishes, and it often comes with a long recovery time. So review carefully with a specialist if surgery is really the right answer for your spinal pain.
A spine pain management specialist can help you understand the treatment options available to you when you have spinal pain. Your spine pain management physician will complete a comprehensive exam and history of your pain and order imaging studies and appropriate lab work.
Your specialist will review your treatment options with you to determine the right course of action to address your spine issues and, importantly, to ensure pain management.
Spine pain management involves creating the most constructive plan of action to get you through this difficult point in life. Under the care of Dr. Brandon Claflin at Oklahoma Interventional Spine and Pain, you explore the options one step at a time.
