Pain Medicine

For thousands of years, doctors have been helping to relieve their patients' pain with a variety of medications and treatments. Like other areas of medicine, a new subset of doctors have become specialists in treating pain. They are focused on managing all types of pain - studying what causes it, how the body reacts to it, how different medications dull or eliminate the pain, and how other treatments can be used to relieve many painful conditions.

Pain management specialists are concerned about the patient's ability to function and their quality of life. When pain is chronic or complicated by other medical conditions, the patient's primary care physician may refer the patient to a pain specialist, such as a physiatrist. Physiatrists are medical physicians who specialize in physical medicine and rehabilitation with a special interest in musculoskeletal conditions. Some physiatrists have advanced training in Interventional Pain Management (IPM). IPM is an area of medicine devoted to the diagnosis and treatment of pain related disorders.

A pain management specialist develops a treatment plan to relieve, reduce, or manage pain and help patients return to everyday activities quickly without surgery or heavy reliance on medication. To make sure all the patient's needs are met, the physician coordinates care through an interdisciplinary team of health professionals. Such professionals include:

• Physiatrists
• Anesthesiologists
• Internists
• Oncologists
• Surgical specialists
• Psychiatrists
• Psychologists
• Nurses
• Occupational Therapists
• Physical Therapists

Pain management specialists are most concerned with the patient's overall quality of life. To that end, they treat the whole patient, not just one part of the body.

Dr. Bernaiche’s focus of pain management involves interventional spinal and musculoskeletal techniques the diagnose and treat the symptoms through needle guided procedures, which are minimally invasive and are done on an outpatient basis. Usually testing and treatments only take minutes or just a few hours to perform.

Dr. Bernaiche is Fellowship trained and board certified by the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, World Institute of Pain, American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians.