Chronic Pain Patient Resources

The physicians and staff of The Pain Management Group recognize the importance of a wholistic approach to the life-long management of chronic pain. We do our best to raise patient awareness of pain psychology and total body wellness, for it is widely recognized that medication and interventional procedures are only a small part of the management of your illness.

There are numerous resources available in the Middle Tennessee region for adjunctive care. We refer many of our patients to area pain psychologists for individual and group therapy including, but not limited to, relaxation, biofeedback, and distraction method training. Perhaps the largest area provider of such care is the Centerstone organization. Their informative website is http://www.centerstone.org/

Vanderbilt University's Center for Integrative Health is another valuable resource for our patient population. In fact, information is available on their home page ( www.vanderbilthealth.com/integrativehealth ) for an upcoming program entitled "COPE: Compassionate Options for the Pain Experience". According to their site, this will be a two and half day immersion experience designed specifically for patients like ours.

In addition to such wonderful local resources, there is a plethora of legitimate patient support information, oftentimes specific to a disease state, available via the web. The Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome Association is one such group. Their website is http://www.rsds.org/ . Even local bookstores carry sections of books and magazines highlighting the chronic pain experience providing support. Pain Pathways Magazine is a particular favorite and it is available in Barnes & Noble Bookstores, or via subscription at http://www.painpathways.org/ . This beautiful full color magazine is publised quarterly and is full of articles written and edited by chronic pain health care professionals to be read by chronic pain patients.

Please feel free to discuss such additional therapies and support networks as those mentioned above with you healthcare professional when you next visit The Pain Management Group. We look forward to seeing you!

Conversations with our patients' other Healthcare Providers

The physicians and staff of The Pain Management Group value the daily conversations held with our referring providers. We do our best to contact, by telephone, your primary care physician at the time of your initial visit, introducing ourselves to your doctor and sharing our impressions of your pain complex. We also appreciate progress reports from your physical and occupational therapists, visit notes and care updates from your psychiatrists, and the detailed operative plans and post-op visit notes of our surgical colleagues. The complex nature of chronic pain necessitates a broad, multidisciplinary approach and we recognize the importance of being "team players".

RSD or CRPS? ... or Causalgia? ... or CRPS Type 2?

Today's PMG blog entry is a two minute reminder of the terminology used to categorize a debilitating pain condition treated by the fellowship-trained physicians of The Pain Management Group.

The term Complex Regional Pain Syndrome was coined by a panel of experts in the field at a consensus meeting held in Orlando, FL in 1993 for a condition formerly referred to as Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy or as Causalgia. Each of the "elder" terms attempted to describe the complex of signs and symptoms associated with a disease that is still largely a mystery. Thought to be a derangement (dystrophy) of the sympathetic nervous system, the disease is now broken into two subtypes. We categorize a patient's syndrome as CRPS Type I if we know not of a specific injury to a particular nerve. We categorize the syndrome as CRPS Type II if in fact we feel as though we can implicate a direct injury to a peripheral nerve as the cause of the subsequent pain.

Though an overtly simplistic explanation, we hope you'll keep in mind that our professional staff is always available for consultations regarding this and many other complex chronic pain issues.

The Pain Relief Bulletin: coming to the web

The staff and physicians of The Pain Management Group are happy to announce that full versions (PDF) of our popular publication The Pain Relief Bulletin (formerly The Interventional Bulletin) will soon be made available via our continually re-vamped website: www.thepainmanagementgroup.com . The Bulletin has been warmly received for some time by physicians and mid-level providers throughout our expansive Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama referral base. However, it will now be available "world wide" for reference by health care professionals and patients alike.

New Physicians join the Pain Management Group

Stay tuned for information about the newest additions to the Pain Management Group family of medical professionals. July 1 marked the start for Drs. Hamolya, Schneider, and Shute. The organization's website will soon include profiles describing the educational background, professional interests, and personal connections of our newest members!