| Clinical
Programs: Acute & Chronic
Pain Treatment
 Pain is an unpleasant sensory experience.
Pain is usually divided into two broad categories-
acute and chronic.
Acute pain is generally a biologically useful
warning of impending or actual tissue damage.
An example is the pain of touching a hot stove
where you might get burned. It is usually well
defined with clearly defined sensory receptors
in the affected tissue (skin, bone, bowel,
etc.)
Chronic pain is defined as pain that lasts
longer than normally would be expected for
a particular injury or problem or pain that
persists more than three months. It is not
biologically useful information. It doesn’t
tell you to stop doing something or bad things
will happen. Chronic pain just hurts! It has
poorly defined mechanisms, it is not always
clear why it gets better or worse, and its
transmission within the nervous system, central
connections and pathways are unclear
Once someone is put into the chronic pain category
they are treated differently. Doctors stop
looking for a cause, they try different types
of medication in an attempt to suppress “persistent
over-activity” in the nervous systems,
they stop listening to the patient (if they
ever listened at all), and they tell the patient
that there is nothing more that can be done
and that the patient should learn to live with
it. Untreated pain can be a dangerous condition
that can have ill effects on neurologic feedback
processes that affect healthy brain function,
psychological state-of-mind, and harm the immune
system. There can be side effects and even
permanent damage to the patient from the medication
or even surgery often used to manage chronic
pain
There is a third category- persistent undiagnosed
or inadequately treated acute pain.
Dr. Kochan has been treating pain patients
for over twenty years. His experience is that
most patients with “chronic pain” actually
have undiagnosed acute pain which can be treated
and in many cases cured once the right diagnosis
is made. This requires more than just getting
a blood test or a MRI. Sometimes a diagnosis
requires a detailed history and physical examination
which many patients who have had pain for years
have never had. In other cases it is the treatment
which is not appropriate or adequate for the
diagnosis. In many cases patients are told
that there is nothing more that can be done.
Given the limited choices for treatment that
most doctors are aware of or are willing to
try this may seem to be true- but it’s
not.
Integrative Medicine which is the combined
use of both conventional and complementary
diagnostic and healing techniques offers
the best approach to pain treatment. Multiple
therapies can be blended in a unique way
that is tailored to the individual and their
specific health condition.
Dr. Kochan has knowledge of techniques used
in mainstream pain medicine and in effective
Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM)
modalities. He draws on his more than twenty
years of hands-on experience in physical
medicine, orthopedics, and multiple holistic
health disciplines to design a custom treatment
plan for each patient .
Dr. Kochan and his clinical associate Mr. Ray
Seiple, MA specialize in the use of prolotherapy and apitherapy
to treat acute and chronic pain including headaches, neck
and back pain, joint
pain and arthritis clinical
and neuropathic
pain
including shingles pain and scar pain. In addition,
when necessary, they may use other useful modalities
including Botox
injections, trigger
point injections and oral and trans-dermal narcotic or non-narcotic
medications, massage therapy and hormone
or nutritional therapy. If warranted, patients
may also be referred to outside specialists
for adjunctive treatment with acupuncture,
biofeedback, psychological counseling, or
physical therapy.
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