Pain Management

St. Luke's Healthcare

Internal Medicine, Primary Care & Addiction Medicine located in Mid-City, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Mandeville, Denham Springs, Hammond & Abbeville, LA

Pain management looks a bit different for everyone; what works for someone else might not work for you even if you both have the same condition. At St. Luke’s Healthcare in Mid-City Baton Rouge, Mandeville, Abbeville, Hammond, and Lafayette, Louisiana, Kristen Ducote, MD, and the team specialize in creating one-of-a-kind dynamic treatment plans that take all of your personal needs into account. Learn more about pain management by calling St. Luke’s Healthcare for an appointment, or by scheduling an appointment online today.

Pain Management Q & A

Pain Management Service

What is pain management?

Pain management is a form of health care that aims to improve your quality of life by reducing the long-term pain that holds you back. Living with pain can make it hard to move, sleep, interact with others, work, and generally enjoy your life.

The St. Luke’s Healthcare team individualizes pain management with long-term, calculated care plans. The various treatments in your plan are selected based on your personal needs, preferences, the intensity and duration of the pain, and its cause. Some popular pain management treatments and services include:

Medication management
Physical therapy
Counseling
Steroid injections
Trigger point injections
Spinal cord stimulation

As you integrate these treatments into your routine, you must come in for follow-up visits with the St. Luke’s Healthcare team. They ask for your feedback and provide blood tests and other services to measure how well your treatment is working. You can change your plan at any time if it isn’t working out for you.

Which conditions require pain management?

Many different conditions cause long-lasting or chronic pain. Even some acute injuries, which happen quickly and eventually heal, can lead to chronic pain because your body continues to send pain signals for your brain to interpret.

The St. Luke’s Healthcare team uses pain management strategies to lessen pain and discomfort from conditions like:

Fibromyalgia
Herniated discs
Peripheral neuropathy
Interstitial cystitis
Complex regional pain syndrome
Migraines
Arthritis

If you experience severe or prolonged pain and don’t yet have a diagnosis, the St. Luke’s Healthcare team performs an initial evaluation after reviewing your medical history for possible causes and contributing factors. They might use helpful tests like X-ray imaging, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, and blood tests to explore possible causes.

Which type of pain am I experiencing?

The many different pain types can be separated into two categories, and recognizing your pain within either of them helps the St. Luke’s Healthcare team create a more effective treatment plan for you.

Your pain might be:

Nociceptive

Nociceptive pain comes directly from some form of tissue damage, like a bruise, bone fracture, or wound. Pain signals travel from the area of damage, through your peripheral nerves to the spinal cord, and up toward your brain so you know something’s wrong.

Neuropathic

Neuropathic pain comes from a disease or damage that impacts your whole nervous system, so you can’t pinpoint one specific point of origin.

To find out more about different types of pain and the best methods of pain management for them, call St. Luke’s Healthcare or request an appointment online today.