Cervical pain is just another word for neck pain, as in medical language “Cervical = Neck”. When a patient with neck pain asks me “whether I have cervical problem?” I feel he means to ask if he has a “cervical disc problem ?” We should know cervical pain can be due to lot of reasons:
- Muscular spasm
- Cervical spondylosis
- Cervical facet arthropathy
- Cervical canal stenosis
- Cervical disc prolapse
- Cervical Potts spine
- Cervical tumors
- Metastasis
- Traumatic injury to spine
- Secondary to migraine and many more…
Whom should I go to get my neck pain fixed?
Let me tell you a small incident. Recently, a 45 yr old male suffering of neck pain radiating to his right arm since 3 months visited me at my Aggarwal’s Pain and Spine Clinic, Indirapuram. He had already consulted a physiotherapist but 15 days of physiotherapy gave him no relief. Further, he consulted a orthopedician who gave him NSAIDS, Muscle relaxants, advised hot fermentation but it was not beneficial. Then he went to a neurologist who gave him neuropathic pain medications and made him undergo a MRI which showed a C5-C6 PIVD but medications didn’t helped much. He was then referred to a Neurosurgeon for cervical disc surgery. Surgeon thought surgery is not warranted as disc bulge was not that severe. Now where to go?
This is a common scenario, where patients with Neck and Back pain follow the same sequence but in the end pain and spine clinic is only an option left to get relief.
We should remember that Pain clinic, mostly run by superspecialized anaesthetist (Pain and Spine Specialist) after years of training in diagnosing and managing pain can diagnose your cause of pain, give you right advice as well as medications to cure your primary problem. Be it Disc bulge, Tuberculosis of spine, facet arthropathy, Myofacial pain, Cervicogenic headache, Neck pain due to Migraine, Cervical canal stenosis, trauma etc. Certain medications like strong opioids can only be given by them to get instant pain relief. You are going to different specialities in many instances just delaying the right pain treatment. In the end if you don’t get relief, we are the only speciality managing pain by interventional non-surgical means by targeting the nerves or joints under ultrasound or fluoroscopic guidance blocking the pain signals by various procedures like Cervical epidural Neuroplasty, cervical medial branch RFA, transforaminal epidurals, Intradiscal Ozone, Biculoplasty, Third occipital nerve blocks and RFA, intraarticular facet blocks.
So, Pain and Spine clinic is always the right place to get all medical and interventional treatment to get rid of any type of pain. Here we guide Physiotherapist by making the correct diagnosis of cause of neck pain and advising him the right modalities for you. If any patient’s condition warrant surgery then, we guide the patient accordingly. So, Pain and Spine Clinic work in tandem with lot of other specialities but more than 95% patients will get relief here.