Specialist Help For Peripheral Neuropathic Pain
Although it is not known exactly how many people have peripheral neuropathic pain, it is estimated that around 1% of the population suffer with constant or chronic neuropathic pain.
Given that around 10 people in every 1,000 per head of population will experience chronic peripheral neuropathic pain, it is a relatively rare condition and thus it can often require the specialist knowledge of pain specialists and pain consultants to ensure that the optimum treatment is administered to elicit a favourable outcome and ensure that the patient can return to a pain free existence.
The Benefits Of Specialised Treatment
At London Pain Clinic, we are expert in our profession, which means that not only do we have the latest technological equipment, such as TENS and PENS (transcutaneous and percutaneous electrical nerve stimulator equipment) for almost immediate use, we have specialised training in pain management: it is our speciality!
Although neuropathic pain as a whole is often treated with a ‘cocktail’ of medication, ranging from analgesics to strong anti-depressants and even anti-convulsion medication, this may not be ideal for all patients.
Drugs that are designed for use as anti-depressants or to prevent seizures are, by their very nature quite powerful drugs that often come with side effects. In addition, some opiate based medication can ‘dull’ the senses generally and many individuals have genuine concerns about becoming too reliant on medication, particularly as long term use can bring an increased resistance (thereby necessitating an increase in dosage) and there are fears about dependency as well.
Differing Techniques For Managing Pain
Because we are so expert in our field of pain management, we recognise that there is not one single, ‘magic’ bullet (not even medication) that can ease neuropathic pain and as such we have a multi-disciplinary team that is comprised of experts in:
- Physiotherapy
- Clinical psychology
- Chinese medicine and acupuncture
- Alternative medicine therapist
- Traditional, highly skilled pain consultants
This means that we can adopt a very holistic approach to treating neuropathic pain, in a way that is simple and straightforward and is extremely rare within pain management clinics. We are thus able to offer patients help from traditional and complementary medicine in a way that creates a synergy between all the different disciplines, so we are all working together to alleviate pain. It is not a case of treating pain using traditional methods and then patients having to seek out alternative medicine practitioners elsewhere.
We can therefore use different techniques for managing pain, that are only minimally invasive (such as electrical nerve stimulation), injecting the nerves to block them from signalling to the brain that pain is being felt and physiotherapy, acupuncture etc.
Our multi-disciplinary team is the reason why we are able to offer such a range of services, which gives us an almost unique position in terms of being able to offer treatments that can help patients live with only minimal levels of medication.
So if you do suffer from peripheral neuropathic pain and you worry about taking strong medication, then remember that there is help out there that will look at your pain and treat it from a multi-disciplinary angle, with the aim of reducing your medication and hopefully enabling you to live without it!
