What is orthopedics?

Orthopedics is a medical specialty in which highly trained physicians treat the entire musculoskeletal system, including the bones, muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments, and other soft tissues in the body. 

The joints are a particular area of focus for orthopedic surgeons, from the tiny facet joints that link the vertebrae to weight-bearing joints like the hips and highly mobile ones like the shoulders. 

Pain is the most common complaint that orthopedic specialists treat, and they cover back, neck, shoulder, knee, and many other areas of pain. In addition to resolving pain, orthopedics care focuses on the source of the pain to relieve additional issues such as poor range of motion or stiffness. 

When should I see an orthopedics specialist?

Any musculoskeletal injury or pain may warrant a visit to Innovative Pain Medicine. Some examples of conditions orthopedic medicine specialists usually treat include:

  • Arthritis 
  • Muscle injuries
  • Tendon injuries
  • Ligament injuries
  • Nerve damage
  • Herniated discs
  • Degenerative disc disease
  • Spinal stenosis
  • Fractures
  • Joint dislocations
  • Joint instability 
  • Loose bodies (cartilage) in joints
  • Congenital spine differences

Orthopedics covers many different parts of the body, but ultimately this branch of medicine is there to help you recover from injury, manage the effects of wear-and-tear, and prevent musculoskeletal conditions from causing you long-term problems. 

How do orthopedics specialists treat pain?

Innovative Pain Medicine offers noninvasive, minimally invasive, and other types of treatments for acute and chronic pain. Some examples of the many treatment choices include: 

  • Physical therapy
  • Oral medication
  • Trigger point injections to force muscle knots to relax
  • Epidural steroid injections to decrease inflammation in the epidural space in the spine
  • Facet joint injections to reduce inflammation in the facet joints
  • Sympathetic nerve blocks to deaden sensation in the nerves supplying a limb 
  • Radiofrequency ablation to deaden a pain-causing nerve using a heat lesion
  • Percutaneous microdiscectomy to remove a protruding part of a spinal disc
  • Viscosupplementation to add lubrication to the knee joints (for osteoarthritis knee pain)
  • Kyphoplasty to restore a compressed vertebra 

Patients start with the most conservative noninvasive treatment modalities and only progress to the next level of minimally invasive care if the first-line treatment didn’t work. Even when patients need a minimally invasive procedure, kyphoplasty, percutaneous microdiscectomy, and other procedures have a rapid recovery. 

Need an empathetic and experienced orthopedics provider? Call Innovative Pain Medicine or book your appointment online today.