Pain management and specifically back pain management are recognized as medical specialties
People who suffer from Chronic Back Pain need good options for back pain management. In the past, medicine has taken a sort of "you need to learn to live with it" approach to intractable back pain, rather than a back pain management approach. However, the field of pain management in general and back pain management in particular has evolved to the point that pain management is becoming a specialty in its own right.
Although that specialty may develop over time into a field entirely of its own, there is value in the present approach which involves a broad group of medical professionals, resulting in a multidisciplinary approach.
There is, on the other hand, a great deal of specialized training available in pain management. Pain management specialists, and among them back pain management specialists, are most commonly found in the following disciplines:
* Anesthesiology
* Physiatry (also called Physical medicine and rehabilitation)
* Interventional radiology
* Neurology
* Physical therapy
* Osteopathy
* Primary care medicine
Specialists in psychology, psychiatry, behavioral science and other areas may also play an important role in a comprehensive back pain management program.
If you continue to experience back pain, ask your doctor to refer you to a back pain management specialist. Alternatively, go to the site of the American Academy of Pain Management, http://www.aapainmanage.org/, or the American Board of Pain Medicine, http://www.abpm.org/, to locate a pain medicine professional in your area.
It is important to remember that back pain management is a complex area of medicine and because of individual differences, a treatment that works well for one person may not at all for another. As a result, back pain management is often a series of trial and error treatments that will hopefully, eventually yield the right combinations of approaches to manage your back pain.
It is also important to be sure that you are communicating very well with the physician who is developing your back pain management program with you. Back pain comes in many forms and degrees and your doctor needs the most accurate description of your pain that you can provide to give him the best opportunity to find the right treatment.
