Vital TMS Therapy & Mental Health Services
Chronic Pain Clinic located in Washington, DC.
Chronic pain is tough to manage and affects every aspect of your life. Many patients who have chronic pain conditions benefit from treatments like physical therapy and medication, but these aren’t always the answer. If your treatment program for chronic pain isn’t helping, Vital TMS Therapy located in Washington DC has an alternative solution for you. TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) is a safe, painless, totally noninvasive treatment that uses magnetic energy to adjust your brain chemistry. To find out more about the benefits of TMS for chronic pain, call Vital TMS Therapy today, or request an appointment online.
Chronic Pain Q & A
What is chronic pain?
Chronic pain is a widespread problem that has numerous causes. To be classed as chronic, your pain must be present for at least a couple of months and not improving.
Some patients experience worsening pain; others find their pain levels off. Pain can also fluctuate, so you might experience severe pain sometimes, but feel better in between.
Some causes of chronic pain are curable, but it can be a long process. Cancer pain and postherpetic neuralgia are examples of chronic pain that can resolve over time.
However, many people with chronic pain have incurable conditions that need careful management to preserve quality of life.
What causes chronic pain?
Sometimes chronic pain means some part of your body isn’t healing properly. This can happen when you tear a ligament, for example. The ligament doesn’t heal fully or heals but forms scar tissue.
Some kinds of injuries can’t heal themselves, like certain types of meniscal tears in the knee that don’t get enough blood to repair themselves.
Chronic pain can also be due to incurable conditions like osteoarthritis. The joint deterioration continues to get worse over the years, causing chronic inflammation and pain. There are also chronic pain conditions like fibromyalgia and myofascial pain syndrome that cause chronic pain.
The third cause of chronic pain is related to problems in the nervous system. Your nerves might continue to send out pain signals long after an injury has healed, for instance.
The nerves themselves could get damaged, causing a type of pain called neuralgia. Or you could have neuropathic pain, where the nerves send back pain signals when there’s no tissue damage at all.
What treatments are there for chronic pain?
There’s no one solution to the problem of chronic pain. The causes can be so varied, and each patient’s response to a particular treatment is unpredictable, so it can take time to find a treatment program that works.
If there’s an underlying condition causing your chronic pain, treating the cause should help considerably. For example, if you have a meniscal tear that can’t heal, surgery to repair the meniscus can resolve the problem. Or a joint replacement if you have severe arthritis could help considerably.
In other cases, chronic pain doesn’t have a treatable cause, which means patients need to work with their health care providers to develop an effective pain management plan. Your plan could include:
- Medications
- Trigger point injections
- TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation)
- Bioelectric therapy
- Physical therapy
- Psychological therapy
- Acupuncture
- Chiropractic
- Nutritional supplements
- Herbal remedies
If you’re having problems finding a treatment program that works, or you want to avoid the possible side effects of medication, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) offers a safe, effective alternative.
TMS uses noninvasive magnetic energy to help reduce chronic pain. If you’d like to find out more, call Vital TMS Therapy today or request an appointment online.
