Many of our patients come to us with no previous pain management care. As such, many first-time patients are anxious and expect to be overwhelmed by their experience.

Preparing For Your First Appointment
At Summit Spine & Joint Centers, our pain wellness center is designed to bring you the best possible care from our empathetic team. We want you to feel fully prepared for your appointment with us so that the only surprises are positive ones!

We recently sat down with some of our pain management physicians to see how we could best prepare both first-time and returning patients for their appointments. As it turns out, many of our patients had the same questions. We decided to share these questions along with our doctors’ answers in an effort to start putting #PatientsFirst before they even walk through our doors.

Are Painkillers the Only Option to Treat My Pain?

No. While some clinics offer just pain killers, interventional pain clinics use different types of therapies to treat your pain, including pain-relieving injections, physical therapy, behavior therapy and alternative therapies such as stem cells and platelet rich plasma (PRP) therapy.

Some clinics, such as our pain wellness center, offer these and more advanced therapies such as spinal cord stimulation (SCS) and Vertiflex. All of these treatments have the potential to reduce your pain and your need for painkillers to relieve your discomfort.

What Happens If Epidural Injections Don’t Help My Pain?

There are about 10 different injections that can be done in the spine to help pain other than epidurals. In the past, the standard for patients experiencing pain was to do a series of epidurals to help with back and neck pain, then move on to surgery if these injections were unsuccessful.

We now use various diagnostic procedures to properly identify the source of your pain. Once we have the root cause of your symptoms, our pain management physicians then work with you to customize a treatment plan and appropriately address your pain.

Are There Any Pain Conditions That You Don’t Treat?

Our team is happy to evaluate any patient experiencing pain. Our expertise allows us to treat patients with a variety of different concerns with therapies that don’t rely on pain medication as a quick fix. We want to help you get at the source of your pain for true pain relief.

Have More Questions? Get in Touch with Us!

We hope this quick Q&A is beneficial and helps minimize some of your anxieties or preconceived notions about pain management. Please don’t hesitate to call us at (770) 962-3642 or visit our website for more information and to schedule an appointment to begin reviewing your treatment options.

You can also visit our Patient Resources page on our website for more information and access to patients forms to prepare in advance for your appointment!