Patients coming to the Pain Clinic have often been dealing with chronic pain, normally meaning any pain that you’ve been experiencing for a period of at least three months.
If you have Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, you are normally advised to come in if you have pain ‘beyond what you’d normally expect’. This might be after surgery, or once a fracture has healed and is at a point where you’d expect pain levels to have improved.
When pain is affecting your sleep, it can have a serious knock-on effect. Sleep deprivation can contribute to low mood, irritability, a lack of energy, and a general low quality of life. If this has been your experience, our experts at the Pain Clinic are here to help.
Types of pain you may be experiencing include:
- Neuropathic (nerve pain)
- Inflammatory pain
- Mix of both (e.g. disc bulge in the back or neck, with nerve pain radiating into the leg)
Very often, patients will have been seen previously in primary care. You may have tried various painkillers, such as paracetamol, nerve pain medication, or analgesia. You may also have tried physical therapies, such as physiotherapy, osteopathy, acupuncture, or consultations with a chiropractor.
If you haven’t responded to any of these therapies and your pain has persisted, why not book an appointment with the Pain Clinic? By prioritising a rapid diagnosis, Mount Alvernia’s Pain Consultants offer long-term solutions and management plans to bring much-needed relief to Surrey-based patients, and those travelling from further afield.
Treatments in the clinic room are very popular. This may include trigger point injections, such as steroid injections or injections to treat myofascial pain (trigger points in your muscles) and muscle spasm. If these prove effective, they can often be repeated at a later date.
Trigger point injections can be useful if you have limited mobility, as they can address localised pain and free up the range of motion, enabling you to progress to physiotherapy, which may have been otherwise impossible.
Interventional procedures for spinal conditions often involve epidurals, and these can be done either through ultrasound or x-ray in operating theatres for targeted accuracy.
Sometimes, the pain relief offered may be for a small window, which enables you to engage with various physical therapies such as physiotherapy, pilates, or yoga. These can then help get you back to full health. All our physiotherapists are trained in CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) to give a joint approach when tackling your pain.
Those with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome are often referred to us by upper limb surgeons or directly from physiotherapy, as it requires specialist care. Medication and nerve blocks are normally required to get on top of the pain, and cases are treated as urgent, ensuring treatment is started within two weeks.
Neuropathic pain can degrade your health and quality of life more than any other type of pain. Patients often report that they can’t live with this kind of nerve pain, finding it incredibly debilitating. A large percentage of these patients are often unable to tolerate nerve pain medications, so alternatives are required, such as injections, topical creams or local anaesthetic plasters, which help avoid any unwanted side effects of medication.
The Pain Clinic also provides palliative care for cancer patients, working closely with oncologists to provide appropriate pain relief when necessary.
Some patients will have been seen previously in other departments, but the main aim of a consultation with the Pain Clinic is to assess your symptoms, perform any necessary diagnostic tests or scans, and draw up a treatment/management plan.
Your consultant will take a detailed medical history and ask about all the symptoms you have been experiencing. They will want to know:
- What are your symptoms?
- How long have you had these symptoms?
- Have your symptoms become progressively worse?
- How would you describe your pain? Is it a stabbing pain or does it spread out? Is it constant or intermittent?
- Does anything cause your symptoms to flare up?
- What are your goals and expectations? Are you hoping to reduce pain or become pain-free?
An MRI scan may be useful, especially when investigating neck or back pain, and this can be arranged in our Imaging department if you haven’t already had this type of scan. There is usually a quick turnaround for MRI results, so you won’t be kept waiting long before your personalised treatment plan is created.
With a diagnosis confirmed, your consultant can present you with all your treatment options, outlining expected outcomes, taking into account your goals for recovery.
Some procedures can be offered on the same day, such as trigger point injections, making the Pain Clinic a ‘one-stop shop’ for certain conditions and treatments. The door is always open, so many patients come in for a follow-up in the months and years to come, either for further treatment or to check on their recovery progress.
The focus of your consultation is also to find long-term solutions for you. You may find that a simple treatment offers good pain relief, but if it only lasts for a week, it can be even more disheartening. Our Pain Clinic specialists aim to find solutions which offer relief for six months to a year, enabling you to experience other physical therapies in order to bring you back to full health. Your consultant can signpost you towards the most beneficial therapies for your condition, ensuring your treatment is kept relevant, efficient, and effective.
By choosing to have your treatment at Mount Alvernia, you’ll be able to take advantage of all these great benefits:
Assessments ASAP – If your quality of life has been affected by your symptoms, you’ll want to be seen by a consultant without any delay. By seeing patients rapidly, as well as offering a quick turnaround with MRI results, our consultants can get you started on the right course of treatment as soon as possible.
Patient satisfaction – 98% of other patients in 2020 said they would happily recommend the Mount Alvernia Hospital to friends and family in an independent report, and we’re confident that you’ll agree. 98% also said that the quality of care here at Mount Alvernia Hospital was either ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’. We aim to make your stay with us as comfortable as possible, and these results highlight our continued efforts to ensure this is achieved.
Self-referrals - If you’ve been treated at Mount Alvernia previously, your consultant may refer you for specialist help at the Pain Clinic, but you are also very welcome to make an appointment direct to the Pain Clinic without having to wait for so long on the NHS.
Personalised care – We believe in a bespoke approach to treatment, tailoring each experience to our patients’ need, based on an accurate diagnosis.
A multidisciplinary approach – Our teams at Mount Alvernia work in tandem with each other to provide you with the best possible care from start to finish. We have close links with Neurology and Rheumatology to aid your treatment. Your Pain Management consultant will work closely with colleagues in physiotherapy and radiography, alongside anaesthetists and nurses, to ensure you have support from appropriate medical professionals every step of the way during your treatment.
Convenient appointments – With appointments available at dedicated clinics five days a week, you are sure to find an appointment slot that suits your needs and availability.
If you have been suffering from persistent pain, why not book a consultation today? Our consultants can organise the necessary diagnostic tests to investigate your symptoms, and outline all treatment options for you promptly, arranging any further scans or surgery if required.
For effective pain relief and expert personalised care, please contact Mount Alvernia to book an appointment now.
