RobGouldDO

Dr. Robert Gould

The following post was written by Robert E. Gould, DO. Dr. Gould is board certified in phys­i­cal med­i­cine and reha­bil­i­ta­tion and has addi­tional train­ing in pain man­age­ment. He is a mem­ber of Mid­west Pain Treatment Center, an affil­i­ate of Pain Man­age­ment Group.

If you are suf­fer­ing from any one of a num­ber of injuries or ill­nesses, you don’t have to live in pain.

The diag­no­sis and treat­ment of acute and chronic pain is our spe­cialty. We see patients with acute and chronic pain from a vari­ety of con­di­tions. Back, neck and pelvic pain are com­mon com­plaints. We also treat patients with pain from sci­at­ica, headaches, arthri­tis, fibromyal­gia, nerve dam­age, can­cer, mus­cle spasms, surgery, shin­gles, work-related injuries and more.

We under­stand that pain affects every area of life. It inter­feres with work, sleep, mood and behav­ior. In fact, chronic pain affects 119 mil­lion Amer­i­cans – more than dia­betes, heart dis­ease and can­cer com­bined. It is the chief med­ical com­plaint among older Amer­i­cans. The cost of health care and lost pro­duc­tiv­ity due to pain last year was between $560 bil­lion and $635 bil­lion, accord­ing to the Amer­i­can Acad­emy of Pain Medicine.

Our goal at our clinics is to con­trol pain so peo­ple can return to their nor­mal every­day activ­i­ties. We offer many safe and proven meth­ods to elim­i­nate or dimin­ish pain.

We begin with a phys­i­cal exam, patient his­tory and radi­o­log­i­cal stud­ies, if nec­es­sary, to deter­mine the cause of your pain. Then we indi­vid­u­al­ize treat­ment with options that include med­ica­tions, injec­tions and elec­tri­cal stim­u­la­tion, among other inter­ven­tions and therapies.

Spe­cific pro­ce­dures include: epidural steroid injec­tions, facet joint injec­tions, radiofre­quency abla­tion, spinal cord stim­u­la­tion, myoneural injec­tion (with or with­out Botox), nucle­o­plasty, selec­tive nerve root block, stel­late gan­glion block and lum­bar sym­pa­thetic block. We have a wide range of med­ica­tions at our dis­posal, includ­ing anti-depressant and anti-seizure drugs.

Effec­tive pain man­age­ment requires a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary approach because everybody’s pain is dif­fer­ent. Our treat­ment phi­los­o­phy involves refer­rals, if needed, to spe­cial­ists such as phys­i­cal ther­a­pists, occu­pa­tional ther­a­pists, psy­chi­a­trists and psy­chol­o­gists who pro­vide exer­cise, cognitive-behavioral ther­apy, coun­sel­ing and other ser­vices to help patients con­trol pain.

The diag­no­sis and treat­ment of pain can be a tricky busi­ness because the rea­son for the pain is not always read­ily appar­ent. As a con­se­quence, good pain man­age­ment requires a thor­ough, mul­ti­fac­eted eval­u­a­tion from expe­ri­enced and spe­cially trained physicians.

Our clinics are ded­i­cated to find­ing and treat­ing the source of pain so our patients can have safe, long-lasting relief and begin to enjoy life again.

To find a pain clinic near you, call 567.225.8080.