Pain Management
You are not alone. The sheer number of Americans suffering from chronic pain is mind-boggling. An estimated 20% of adults experience chronic pain – and the number is even higher among women and older adults.
Pain, especially when it is persistent, can affect your health in many ways. It can limit your ability to carry out daily tasks, lead to emotional and psychological issues like anxiety and depression, and reduce your overall quality of life. It can worsen your ability to manage chronic diseases or fight off illness. It also plays a role in the growing opioid dependency epidemic in the country.
Dr. Eddie Richardson at Lake Oconee Concierge Medicine has specialized training and experience in the medical fields of interventional pain management and addiction management. He utilizes a variety of methods to help relieve the suffering of patients with acute or chronic pain.
Depending on the reason for your pain, Dr. Richardson may prescribe medications or treatments that can offer temporary or long-term relief. This may include painkillers as well as minimally invasive methods such as trigger point injections, which can alleviate the pain and tension caused by knotted muscles. He may also recommend certain alternative integrative medicine therapies.
Alternatives to Opioids
Part of managing your pain means relieving your symptoms in a way that is best for you and your long-term health. If you’re a member of our pain management concierge care program, this may involve alternatives to opioids – especially for patients with a history of substance abuse. Whatever pain management treatment is selected, regular urine drug screenings are used to monitor your success throughout your care with us.
Suboxone and Subutex
These medications are popular among patients requiring opioid alternatives because each can control your pain with a lowered risk of abuse.
- Suboxone contains buprenorphine, an opioid that can effectively treat your pain. It is a Schedule III substance, making it safer and less addictive than methadone (which, prior to 2000, was the drug of choice to treat opiate addiction). Also, in Suboxone, it is mixed with naloxone, a medication that blocks the euphoric “high” associated with opioids, further reducing your risk of addiction.
- Subutex also contains buprenorphine – but not the naloxone.
Suboxone and Subutex have a proven success rate in treating pain while weaning you off addictive opioids – without the debilitating withdrawal symptoms commonly associated with drug abuse recovery. Ask your doctor whether these medications may be right for you.
Interventional Pain Option
When appropriate, we can assist eligible patients in locating a physician registered with the state’s Low THC Oil Registry.
There are currently 17 conditions (including chronic pain) for which low THC oil can be legally used in Georgia – many of which require a patient to be experiencing severe or end-stage symptoms of the condition in question:
- AIDS
- Alzheimer’s disease
- ALS
- Autism spectrum disorder
- Cancer or cancer treatment causing unrelenting wasting or nausea and vomiting
- Crohn’s disease
- Epidermolysis bullosa
- Hospice patients
- Mitochondrial disease
- Multiple sclerosis
- Pain (intractable)
- Parkinson’s disease
- Peripheral neuropathy
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adults 18 years old or older
- Seizure disorders related to epilepsy or head injury trauma
- Sickle cell disease
- Tourette’s syndrome
Are you suffering from chronic pain? Contact the pain management doctor at Lake Oconee Concierge Medicine in Eatonton, Georgia, to find out how we can help relieve your symptoms with our whole-person, customized, membership-based concierge care.
Pain Clinic in Eatonton, GA
When only the very best in personalized medicine will do, call Lake Oconee Concierge Medicine at (706) 484-9824. You can also use our sign up now form, and we’ll get back to you with more information.