Pain Management & Chronic Pain Treatment

Tampa Pain Clinic's goal is to allow patients to live a productive life despite their chronic pain – we attempt to provide a pain management regime that allows a patient's pain to be reduced to an acceptable level without causing unnecessary side-effects. Such relief in turn allows patients to become more active, which in many cases helps to reduce the patient's pain.

Because of the problems associated with drug diversion, most physicians are reluctant to prescribe opioid pain medications to their patients. However, when conservative methods of treatment fail to resolve a patient's chronic pain, pain medication is often a necessity. The decision to go on pain medication must weigh the perils associated with life-long dependency against the potential benefits of pain medication, e.g.: an improved quality of life.

Chronic pain treatment plans typically consist of a combination of opioid medication, exercise, weight-management, and other medications such as muscle relaxants and/or NSAIDs. Our physician, David VanDercar, M.D., Ph.D., does not believe that epidural steroid injections should be used to treat chronic pain. There are no well-controlled studies showing such injections to be an effective method of long-term pain control. Furthermore, the use of steroids is detrimental to the patient's immune system.

Tampa Pain Clinic Now Offer Medication to Treat Addiction

We are now SAMHSA certified to assist patients who are addicted to pain medication. Many individuals initially go on pain medication for legitimate medical reasons but are then unable to stop taking the medication even though they no longer suffer significant pain. For appropriate individuals we offer an out-patient office-based program to treat their addiction. Additionally, we have special programs designed to assist patients who, despite their problems with addiction, also have legitimate chronic pain.