What is PM&R?
Specialists in physical medicine and rehabilitation — also called PM&R or simply PMR — is much more than just pain relief doctors. The main objective of this approach to treatment and prevention. But, your doctors are also in therapeutic rehabilitation and preventive physical medicine as well.
That’s a significant difference. A PMR doctor is licensed to prescribe pain medicine, but in general exhausts all other efforts to provide alternative treatment options before resorting to pain medication. Some of these alternatives include:
- Consulting directly with surgical doctors for post-op therapy and aftercare
- Centering treatment on rehabilitation to improve your overall wellness, not just medically managing your pain levels
- Focusing on prevention of injury and eliminating the exacerbating conditions that cause chronic pain
- Designing specific therapeutic exercise programs to increase flexibility and mobility
- Implementing dietary plans to eliminate further complications caused by excessive weight
The field of physical medicine and rehabilitation also differs from traditional in another way. It not only tackles your physical issues, but it also focuses on addressing your cognitive, behavioral, and functional needs by providing therapeutic support and mental health treatment, as part of its practice.
Prevent the Development of Chronic Pain
One of the main causes of disability is chronic pain. Most people aren’t offered preventive solutions. So they had no guidance as their pain got worse. Prevention of chronic pain development addresses the underlying causes of painful pre-existing medical conditions.
Your physicians remain steadfastly focused on developing strategic personalized treatment plans that address the root causes of your pain. They develop treatment plans that eliminate many of the factors that lead to the need for physical medicine and rehabilitation services. Very often, overriding factors that lead to chronic pain include:
- Obesity
- Inability to exercise or lack of essential physical activity
- Lack of motivation due to depression or anxiety
- Dietary concerns, eliminating foods that cause inflammation and loss of healthy muscle tissue due to comprises in the immune system
- Lack of sufficient vitamins, essential minerals and nutrients
Treatments
By focusing on eliminating aggravating factors that contribute to the cause or development of worsening painful conditions, PMR specialists can reduce or delay the need for medication-assisted treatment. Your compassionate team of medical providers work side-by-side with surgeons, psychiatrists, and other medical care professionals to provide you with the most up-to-date options available, such as:
- Stem cell therapy
- Acupuncture
- Physical therapy
- Homeopathic, herbal supplements
- Prescription medication
- Relaxation therapy
- Mental health and psychological treatment
A variety of medical procedures are available today to treat most chronic pain issues. They consider your individual symptoms before designing the right treatment plan to fit your needs and offer state-of-the-art alternative solutions, such as:
- Expert evaluation to come to the right diagnosis
- Nerve blocks and epidurals
- Trigger point injections
- Radio frequency ablation
- Steroid injections to treat knee pain
- Non-invasive surgical procedures
- Replacement surgery and artificial implants
When Should I Seek Professional Help?
Millions of people unnecessarily live with continuous, aching and sometimes debilitating pain. Many times, chronic pain is so severe that you find it impossible to relax or get adequate amounts of rest. When the existence of pain becomes so unbearable that your quality of life begins to decline, it’s time to seek help from a doctor who specializes in treating chronic pain disorders.
Before recommending treatment, physical medicine and rehabilitation doctors first identify the condition that’s associated with your pain. It may be due to any number of conditions, such as:
- Disease such as cancer, diabetes or other chronic conditions
- Nerve damage
- Post-surgical pain
- Bone disease
- Arthritis
- Injury or trauma