At Cedar Rapids Pain Associates, our specialists address your pain by considering all of its aspects. This starts with determining the exact type, nature, extent and cause of your pain. From there, we use the latest techniques and technologies to help you get relief from your acute or chronic pain.
- Regenerative Medicine – Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) Injections
- Regenerative Medicine – Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy
- Regenerative Medicine – MLS Robotic Laser Therapy
- Spinal injections – epidurals, medial-branch blocks, & more
- Radiofrequency nerve ablation
- Joint injections
- Nerve blocks
- Trigger-point injections
- BOTOX Injections for Chronic Headaches
- Spinal cord stimulation
- Physical Therapy
- Chiropractic spine & joint manipulation
- Nonsurgical spinal decompression therapy
- Manual therapy
- Electrical stimulation
- Therapeutic ultrasound
- Durable medical equipment
Regenerative Medicine – Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) Injections
Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) Injections: a form of regenerative medicine that utilizes platelets from the patient’s own blood to stimulate and accelerate the body’s own natural healing abilities. Platelet-rich plasma consists of two elements: plasma, or the liquid portion of blood, and platelets, a type of blood cell that plays an important role in healing throughout the body. Platelets are well-known for their clotting abilities, but they also contain growth factors that can trigger cell reproduction and stimulate tissue regeneration or healing in the treated area. Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) therapy allow us to harvest the patient’s own platelets and re-inject those concentrated platelets into the site of injury to initiate the body’s own healing cascade to help reduce pain, regenerate damaged tissue, and improve function.
Regenerative Medicine – Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy
Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy (ESWT): also known as Extracorporeal Pulse Activation Therapy (EPAT) is a form of regenerative medicine that uses high energy sound waves that are introduced into the painful, degenerated, or injured areas of the body. This process accelerates the healing process in the body by stimulating local cellular metabolism and enhancing blood circulation to regenerate damaged tissue, reduce pain, and improve function. It is a noninvasive treatment method that is FDA cleared. Oftentimes, the beneficial effects are experienced after only 1 or 2 treatments.
Regenerative Medicine – MLS Robotic Laser Therapy
MLS Robotic Laser Therapy: uses concentrated light energy to penetrate into the damaged, injured, or degenerated tissue to stimulate the body’s own healing process. The MLS Therapy Laser is the most advanced medical laser on the market and uses specific wavelengths of light and a patented delivery system which can reduce inflammation, reduce pain, and accelerate the healing process at a cellular level to regenerate damaged tissues and improve function. This treatment is FDA approved, noninvasive, and pain free. Many patients feel significantly better in just a few treatments.
Spinal injections – epidurals, medial-branch blocks, & more
We use a number of different kinds of spine injections — or “interventions” — to deliver anti-inflammatory medication (steroidal) or numbing agents directly to the source of your pain. Reducing the inflammation due to herniated discs, degenerative disc disease or spinal stenosis can relieve pain, permitting therapeutic exercise that can provide further relief.
(epidurals, medial-branch blocks, & more)
Radiofrequency nerve ablation
By ablating specific nerve tissue with radiofrequency energy, we can eliminate the pain signals they transmit to the brain, which can provide significant pain relief.
Joint injections
Anti-inflammatory and numbing-agent injections often help alleviate pain in the hip, knee, shoulder, elbow and other joints. These can also be helpful in determining the nature of your joint pain and, as a result, other options for treatment and relief.
Nerve blocks
By injecting numbing medication around nerves sending pain signals to the brain, those nerves become temporarily “switched off.” Reduction in pain establishes a diagnosis, which can help us determine if other types of treatment will help. Longer-lasting relief can be achieved by injecting steroids, as well.
Trigger-point injections
We can reduce or eliminate “referred” pain (pain felt in one area but triggered in another) by injecting medicine into the trigger points that cause pain when irritated or overstimulated.
BOTOX Injections for Chronic Headaches
BOTOX® (onabotulinumtoxinA) is a neurotoxic protein that relaxes the muscles when injected. It is most known for the ability to reduce facial wrinkles. To treat chronic migraine, BOTOX® is injected into muscles of the forehead, side and back of the head and neck. The injections block the pain signals and minimize the onset of chronic migraine by causing the muscles to relax, thus preventing the migraine headache before it even starts.
Spinal cord stimulation
Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is a form of neurostimulation, which blocks the brain’s ability to sense pain. Spinal cord stimulators are a long-approved standard treatment for people with chronic back or limb pain for which other treatments haven’t been helpful. While SCS doesn’t work for everyone, most report a significant reduction in pain.
Physical Therapy
Guided instruction of exercises to strengthen weak muscles and properly support joints and ligaments. The goal is to improve strength, flexibility, posture, balance, coordination, and mobility. This helps improve current pain conditions as well as prevent future musculoskeletal issues.
Chiropractic spine & joint manipulation
As a multidisciplinary pain-management practice, Cedar Rapids Pain Associates offers chiropractic techniques that can provide relief for many types of musculoskeletal pain without the need for invasive — even minimally invasive — techniques.
Nonsurgical spinal decompression therapy
Using advanced computer control, this derivative of traction therapy involves stretching the spine to relieve back or leg pain due to a herniated or bulging disc. The stretching reduces the pressure in the disc in order to promote retraction of the bulging disc material, providing nerve decompression. The negative pressure also causes an influx of nutrients, promoting disc healing.
Manual therapy
Using hands-on techniques of physiotherapy, our specialists can often reduce pain without injections. In many instances, however, manual therapy is combined with other treatments to help provide the relief you need.
Electrical stimulation
Using electric impulses, our pain-care specialists can help reduce both acute and chronic pain by modulating or suppressing pain signals. Neuromuscular stimulation can also help improve muscle strength, which is often important to alleviating pain.
Therapeutic ultrasound
Some types of musculoskeletal pain, particularly related to soft-tissue lesions, can be helped with ultrasonic soundwaves. Therapeutic ultrasound can increase blood flow to treated areas, reduce swelling and soften scar tissue.
Durable Medical Equipment
Cedar Rapids Pain Associates’ comprehensive care and capabilities include a full range of durable medical equipment related to treating musculoskeletal problems that cause pain.
(braces, TENS units, traction devices, & more)