Call NowDiagnostic Pain Mapping for Post-Accident Pain
If you are experiencing chronic pain after a car accident, diagnostic pain mapping can be beneficial to find the source of the pain. At our pain management clinic at Impact Medical Wesley Chapel, our doctors use several types of diagnostic and therapeutic spinal injections to find and ultimately heal the pain.
Keep reading to learn more about diagnostic pain mapping for post-accident pain!
What is Diagnostic Pain Mapping?
Diagnostic pain mapping is a technology that allows our doctors to record your responses to the physical stimulation of your muscles and detect any areas of unusual pain sensitivity. This information helps us diagnose the source of your pain and develop an appropriate approach to treat post-accident pain.
This tool opens the door to a treatment plan that will bring you real-world relief, especially if there is no evident source of pain indicated through X-rays, MRIs, or other standardized tests.
Pain Mapping Basics
Pain is your body’s initial response to physical damage. In some circumstances, you experience pain when serious damage has already been done. In other circumstances, the sensation occurs after relatively minor damage and can help you avoid further damage.
Chronic or persistent pain can easily develop in the neck or lower back after an accident. Pain in these areas has a wide array of possible origins, and diagnostic pain mapping helps uncover the underlying cause.
Pain mapping gives your doctor subjective information by measuring your responses to a standard level of pressure applied to an isolated portion of a muscle, a whole muscle, or a group of muscles. These pressure levels are recorded and form a map of your pain responses.
Pain Signals and Nerves
Pain signals are generated from the nerve roots that travel neural pathways throughout the body. When these nerve roots are compressed, they generate pain signals that can be felt in different areas.
For example, patients with lumbar disc problems from a car accident might report pain that radiates into one or both of their legs. This is because the nerve roots that travel to the legs exit the spine in the lumbar chain. Back pain is very complex and difficult to treat, which is where diagnostic pain mapping can be greatly beneficial.
What is a Nerve Block?
A nerve block is an injection of medication that numbs specifically targeted sets of nerves. Diagnostic nerve blocks can be quite helpful in diagnosing the source of pain after a car accident.
Various types of nerve blocks may be used during your pain mapping procedure including:
- Sympathetic nerve blocks: This nerve block reveals if you have damage to the network of nerves that travel the length of your spine.
- Facet joint nerve blocks: This nerve block determines if a facet joint is causing your pain.
- Stellate ganglion nerve blocks: This type of nerve block reveals damage to a network of nerves providing sensations to the head, neck, chest, and arms.
Why Choose Impact Medical Wesley Chapel?
At Impact Medical, we are happy to have double-certified Dr. Robert Gruber, DO, an interventional pain management specialist, on our team. He provides state-of-the-art diagnostic and therapeutic injections to promote healing and bring our patients higher levels of relief and a better quality of life.
He is an expert at using the latest evidence-based diagnostic pain mapping techniques to identify the primary cause of a patient’s pain, and which treatment, such as physical therapy or chiropractic care would best treat their pain and improve function following a car accident.
Post-Accident Pain Management
At Impact Medical Wesley Chapel, we have many specialists under one roof on our team to help manage your pain. Whether your treatment plan includes chiropractic care, physical therapy, manual, or interventional pain management techniques, you can get treated right here at our clinic.
Contact our multidisciplinary clinic at Impact Medical Wesley Chapel for a consultation today; (813) 953-1002!
