Dr. Matthew Shave of 34th Street Chiropractic and Wellness in the Midtown Manhattan area of New York, New York provides expert and caring medical pain management for chronic pain with his unique focus on applied kinesiology and cranio-sacral therapy.
What Kinds of Pain Do You Help With?
Pain management typically deals with two broad categories of pain — intractable and chronic.
Intractable pain is a specific term used as a clinical definition for people who are in constant and severe pain that controls their lives. This type of pain is generally not treatable with chiropractic care and requires powerful medications and/or surgery.
Chronic pain is an ongoing pain that persists longer than a few days and can continue for weeks or months. Chiropractic doctors can treat chronic pain with a variety of non-surgical treatments, such as spinal decompression and spinal adjustments, to address chronic pain symptoms, such as muscle tension and inflammation.
How Does a Chiropractic Doctor Manage Chronic Pain?
A chiropractic doctor first uses an initial consultation, a physical exam, and various tests to enable a diagnosis of a person’s pain. Once diagnosed, a treatment plan is scheduled that may include manual therapies, spinal manipulation, and therapeutic exercises. Some of the sources of pain that we treat include:
- Degenerative disc disease
- Herniated disc
- Kyphosis
- Sciatica
- Spondylolisthesis
- Spondylosis (also called spinal arthritis and spinal osteoarthritis)
- Whiplash
Why Is a Consultation Needed?
The best source for information about a patient’s pain is the patient himself or herself. Because each individual’s experience with pain is unique and personal, a consultation with Dr. Bobrowsky is the initial step in developing a productive pain management program. The approach that works for some does not necessarily work best for others.
The treatment that is chosen to deal with an individual’s pain depends on:
- The cause of the pain
- How long the pain has lasted
- How intense the pain is
- What makes the pain worse or better
During the consultation, it is essential for a patient to give as much pertinent lifestyle and health information as possible and to ask the doctor any questions they can think of. Formulating the best pain management plan for a patient is a process, and feedback on the effectiveness of the plan in dealing with pain is important. The doctor then can adjust the pain management program as necessary.