Powerful New Painkilling Drugs

By tdandrea | Published: January 24, 2012

It recently came to my attention that drug companies are developing new painkillers designed to be even more powerful and addictive than such drugs have ever been before. These new drugs will contain pure hydrocodone—in doses up to ten times higher than in current medications. Most medications, including Percocet and Vicodin, are combined with acetaminophen, which is extremely toxic to the liver when taken in high doses. It is possible to prescribe higher doses of hydrocodone in its pure form because it is not mixed with acetaminophen.

When it comes to painkillers, drug addiction has the ability to affect every type of person from all backgrounds. Let’s remember that drug deaths are now exceeding auto accident fatalities and gun deaths in this country. This part of the world has a serious prescription drug abuse problem that transcends all borders and socioeconomic factors.

The Good News: New Jersey Pain Management

It’s actually a really amazing time in the history of pain management—and not because of today’s drugs. In fact, we should get excited that we don’t need to rely on painkilling medications for relief.

To be clear, Monmouth Pain’s stance on drugs is to provide short-term relief through medication in cases where it is absolutely necessary. Please understand that doctors who are too quick to prescribe serious narcotic painkillers should be avoided. Even if we forget for a minute that painkillers use can be seriously addictive and potentially fatal, even normal use can cause damage to the body. We want to relieve your pain and fix what’s causing suffering while boosting the health of your body, not degrading it.

Pain management and rehabilitation should be undertaken thoughtfully, deliberately, and as a coordinated effort between healthcare practitioners. When done correctly, patients should not require long-term drug use for pain relief. In fact, using painkillers for long periods of time represents a failure of the pain management/rehabilitation system.

If you are in pain for any reason—injury, illness, age, etc.—Monmouth Pain offers a system of care that you may not have tried before. We believe in addressing the causes of pain (for example, treating a disc injury that may be causing back pain and/or sciatica) while also treating any other issues within the body that may or may not be related to your initial complaint. For example, we know that your neck injury and lower back pain could quite possibly be interrelated issues. There’s no point in treating one while ignoring the other.

We take extreme pride in our compassionate, multi-disciplinary system of care that offers all of the following healthcare modalities in one location:

How It Works: Red Bank Pain Management

Let’s talk about how the rehabilitation and pain management system works in our office. Using the above-mentioned example, let’s say a patient came to us with sciatica symptoms. Sciatica is the term we use to describe the painful and disabling set of symptoms related to the irritation of the sciatic nerve. In many cases, sciatica is caused by issues with the spinal discs in the lower back.

For some patients, chiropractic care and physical therapy for a disc injury might be enough to correct the issue and put an end to pain, immobility, and other symptoms. Additional pain management can also be provided through acupuncture.

For other patients, the pain/symptoms may be too great to bear and it’s just not possible to rely on chiropractors or physical therapists for care. What happens now? Where do you go?

Here’s where a lot of problems occur. The next step taken may be a drastic and unnecessary move. Do you need surgery? Most likely, the answer is no. In fact, so many unnecessary and failed surgeries are performed each year that the medical community has coined the term ‘Failed Back Surgery Syndrome.’ Estimates for needed surgeries are wildly lower than the actual number of surgeries performed every year.

Fortunately, we offer a different ‘next step.’ In the case of sciatica, this would likely be an Epidural Steroid Injection, which brings localized pain relief without the risk of addiction. This action will make it possible for you to use our rehabilitation practices—physical therapy and chiropractic—in order to fix the cause of your pain. Among a number of other interventional procedures, we perform Epidural Steroid Injections right in our Red Bank office.

If you are living with any type of pain, disability, injury, illness, etc., we can help. Contact us and together we’ll discover drug-free, healthy, and effective treatment plans.

Contributed by Dr. Thomas Dandrea
P 732-345-1377 | F 732-936-9493 | Email Dr. Dandrea
http://www.monmouthspine.com
Posted in Pain Management | Leave a comment

Chiropractor in Red Bank, NJ Returns to Practice after Auto Accident

By tdandrea | Published: January 17, 2012

After a serious auto accident in July, 2011, Monmouth Pain’s Dr. Thomas Dandrea was unable to treat patients for several months. This week marks a successful recovery and return to his true passion—helping patients through Chiropractic. As a medical, chiropractic, physical therapy, and acupuncture office, what we’re doing here at Monmouth Pain is different from traditional pain management offices—providing serious pain relief without surgery or excessive painkillers.

For those of you who’ve been waiting to see Dr. Dandrea in the intervening months, we’d like to invite you now to return to our office. For new patients, come discover the difference at Monmouth Pain. Kindly give us a call at 732.345.1377 before coming by.

In Dr. Dandrea’s words:

Since I began Monmouth Pain nearly 15 years ago, I’ve treated literally thousands of patients. If you were any one of them, you know that I was just as enthusiastic to treat the thousandth patient as I was the very first.

When something is your true passion, generating that type of motivation and excitement isn’t difficult. And when you mean what you’re doing, the results are often dramatic.

Last summer, I was involved in an auto accident in Red Bank that has kept me from practicing as a chiropractor in our Red Bank office. An SUV drove over my foot, breaking the lower part of my leg and causing a compression fracture in one of my lumbar (lower back) vertebrae while giving me a significant concussion.

I’m an active person—anyone who is a patient in our office knows that I’m constantly moving, always working to give everything to our practice and to my family. When the accident first happened, I thought I could push through and keeping moving at the same pace. I thought I could keep going as I had before—and I was wrong.

In particular, having a concussion meant that I often felt dizzy and experienced vertigo. Of all of my injuries, these symptoms are what finally brought me to a place where I had to admit that something serious had happened to me, that I had to stop and allow myself to recover. Otherwise, I would be of no use to anyone, including both my family and our patients.

If there’s a lesson in all of this, it’s that we need to take the time to let our bodies heal after a trauma. If you’re in pain, don’t let mental blocks stop you from getting help. Denial is counterproductive and waiting to seek help only makes things worse.

I took the time I really needed to recover. A major downside was that I was unable to treat patients during this time. I missed the time I spent with our patients, missed that sense of privilege I always feel when a patient invites me to listen to their concerns and trusts me to find solutions for their painful problems.

The good news? My symptoms have dissipated and I’ve been given the green light to return to light duty at Monmouth Pain. While I’ve left my patients in the more-than-capable hands of our team of chiropractors here, I honestly can’t wait to get back on the treatment floor again.

This week, I’m getting that first-day of school feeling again. Even better, I’m not really the same person I was six months ago. An experience like this changes you forever. In this case, the injury was particularly and ironically relevant to my job as the director of rehabilitation at Monmouth Pain.

The foundation of Monmouth Pain’s core values was built on principles rooted in Chiropractic care. What does this mean? It means that today we are a medical pain management center that doesn’t give out pain pills like candy. It means that we’re 100% and enthusiastically committed to correcting what’s causing your pain without inflicting additional damage to the body. We want you to leave our office without pain and in better health than when you first came. This is an important distinction between us and other medical practices.

That seems intuitive, doesn’t it? And yet so much medical care is centered on pain pills and/or traumatic surgeries. Let’s take a thoughtful route to get you where you want to go. Well-planned pain management and rehabilitation is the key to this objective. Your body’s structure is a major influence in how well it will function as well as in its ability to heal.

We want to focus on your body’s ability to heal, rather than relying on surgery to offer a traumatic quick fix. Maybe you’re in too much pain for physical therapy or chiropractic care. Okay, let’s try something different. Epidural Steroid Injections, which are performed right here in our Monmouth County office, have provided plenty of back pain/sciatica/disc injury patients with localized pain relief. Localized pain relief accomplishes two really major goals:

  • Allows patients to avoid damaging the body with painkilling medications.
  • Helps suffering patients stay away from the operating table by making physical therapy and chiropractic recovery possible.

We offer a number of interventional procedures aside from Epidurals. We also provide Viscosupplementation for knee pain.

The spirit of commitment to providing the very best pain management is how Monmouth Pain initially went from being a one-room chiropractic office to a cutting-edge facility complete with medical doctors, a full physical therapy department, a team of the very best chiropractors in Monmouth County, and acupuncturists.

I’ve been really thrilled to see that so many of my patients have reached out with concern for my condition. It’s also been awesome to see such a large number come in looking for treatment with me.

It’s time to come back and find out what hasn’t changed since the accident—that my hands are still working, that my passion for helping others has grown only stronger, and that I’m looking forward to sitting down with each and every patient and listening to their concerns.

I can’t wait to start seeing both new and returning patients in the upcoming days, weeks, and months. I’m grateful for your patience and hope that we’ll be seeing each other soon.

Feel free to contact us here to set up your appointment.

Contributed by Dr. Thomas Dandrea
P 732-345-1377 | F 732-936-9493 | Email Dr. Dandrea
http://www.monmouthspine.com
Posted in Acupuncture, Chiropractic, Medical Services, Pain Management, Physical Therapy | Leave a comment

The Connection between Stress and Back Pain in Red Bank, NJ

By tdandrea | Published: January 11, 2012

Monmouth County pain management office provides multiple healthy options for relieving stress and back pain. Our office is committed to caring for the entire patient—both mind and body—and our treatment for back pain is no exception. Even better, our goal is to fix each patient’s back pain issue without surgery and while eliminating the need for painkilling drugs. 

We tend to think of getting older and/or experiencing a physical trauma as the major causes of back pain—but stress and anxiety can also be the culprits behind this common complaint. Back issues related to stress can also leave you more vulnerable when you do experience an injury from improper lifting, sports injuries, or any other incident. Let’s take a look at how emotional issues can hurt your back and explore the best ways to rehabilitate from back pain and injury.

First, it’s important to point out that generally speaking, stress is bad for your health. It can cause insomnia, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, headaches, digestive issues, irregular cycles for women, and fertility issues. Stress can even be a causative factor for cancer. I think we can agree that while minor, temporary stress has been shown to prompt people to do well at work and on tests, serious, long term stress is terrible for your body and can really disrupt your life.

A lot of people hold their stress in their muscles. In particular, the muscles of the neck and shoulders. This is why many people experience headaches during especially stressful times. Think about how you’re holding your shoulders and your neck right now—do they feel loose and calm or are you tensing them uncomfortably? How relaxed do you feel at this moment?

If you’re stressed out, here’s what’s happening to you: when the muscles tense up due to emotional issues, they may squeeze the blood vessels flowing through them. As the normal flow of blood becomes constricted in this way, and there isn’t proper blood supply, the muscles alert you by sending pain signals.

As time marches on and those muscles fail to receive the oxygen and nutrients they need from the blood, they begin to weaken. In losing crucial supplies of fuel, they become not only weak but also much more vulnerable to injury. For example, weak core muscles cause lower back pain.

Physical Therapy is extremely helpful in such situations. Not only does exercise have the amazing ability to make you feel better emotionally, it can also boost circulation to affected muscles and help rebuild strength. Additionally, physical therapy can help to resolve your back pain condition after damage has been done, thereby helping you to move and function normally again—without pain.

We’ve been using our PowerPlate exercise machine to help boost many of our patients’ exercise routines with vibration. Vibration prompts an automatic and reactionary response that can increase the efficiency of therapeutic exercise exponentially. Because of the success of our initial PowerPlate investment, we’ve recently decided to incorporate more machines in the office, thereby offering even more of our patients the chance to try this technology—technology which was originally developed for Russian cosmonauts’ atrophied muscles.

Chiropractic Treatment is a natural, intuitive solution for many back pain-related issues, such as disc injuries, sciatica, etc. Monmouth Pain and Rehabilitation offers a type of chiropractic that specializes in ensuring the health of the entire spine (as opposed to only concerning itself with individual issues within the spine). When your spine is in its normal, healthy position, the body’s central nervous system is free to work properly. Not only does this reduce pain, but can also help to relieve stress by liberating the body from the general physical disorder associated with an unhealthy central nervous system.

Acupuncture is also helpful, especially since it offers stress relief without drugs. By harmonizing the body’s yin and yang (these are the opposing forces which make up your QI, your life force), acupuncture brings the body back to its natural state of balance. Many patients become so relaxed during acupuncture treatments that they fall asleep and leave our acupuncture rooms looking content and peaceful. It works by prompting the release of a number of feel-good substances in the brain, including pain-fighting endorphins and mood-enhancing serotonin.

Pain and Anxiety Medications: Avoiding Drugs with Epidural Steroid Injections for Back Pain

Whatever happens, we don’t want any patient to think that the long-term use of painkilling or anxiety medications is a good solution. The combination of drugs makes potential physical damage to the body even worse. What we’re talking about here is liver and kidney damage as well as the risk of addiction.

But what if your back pain is severe? What if you’re unable to use physical therapy or chiropractic treatment because you can’t move or you find both prospects too painful to endure?

First, take the time to reduce your stress by cutting back on stimulants such as caffeine or nicotine. Take care of your body with acupuncture, a healthy diet, and good sleep habits.

For back pain, Epidural Steroid Injections provide serious, localized pain relief. These corticosteroid injections may also include an anesthetic for immediate relief while the steroid medication remains to provide your body with much-needed, longer-lasting relief from pain. Many patients find that it is easier to use physical therapy or chiro after an Epidural Steroid Injection—which corresponds with our objective to FIX your back pain issue so you can return to normal movement.

Contact our Red Bank rehabilitation office to learn more about non-surgical options for back pain relief.

Contributed by Dr. Thomas Dandrea
P 732-345-1377 | F 732-936-9493 | Email Dr. Dandrea
http://www.monmouthspine.com
Posted in Acupuncture, Chiropractic, Pain Management | Leave a comment

Welcome Relief from Holiday Stress: Free Massage Offer

By tdandrea | Published: December 27, 2011

At Monmouth Pain and Rehabilitation, we’re known for our revolutionary programs of pain management and rehabilitation. It’s important not to forget that we consider emotional suffering just as important as physical, and for good reason: negative emotional states can have a serious, destructive impact on the health of the entire body.

While the holidays bring us closer to our families, they also tend to cause or exacerbate negative feelings. In particular, the whirlwind of demands in the form of shopping, cooking, parties, entertaining, cleaning, etc. can take a real toll.

In this light, Monmouth Pain and Rehabilitation would like to help as many members of our community as possible. Recently, we’ve extended the opportunity to win a free massage (we’re offering up to 50 free massages in our Red Bank pain management office). The contest concludes on January 2nd, so you still have plenty of time to enter.*

Stress is terrible for your body. We’ve spoken at length on this subject recently—how stress can cause hypertension, heart disease, headaches, stomach disorders, and even cancer.

Anxiety, depression, and other destructive emotional states can also lead to back pain. When the muscles are chronically tense, they literally squeeze the blood vessels. A lack of circulation means that the muscles don’t receive necessary nutrients and oxygen. Muscles suffering from limited circulation send pain signals to the brain to alert the body that something is wrong. Over time, the muscles begin to become weak, which causes even more disorder within the body and additional pain.

Massage can help relieve pain, improve circulation, and exercise tight, tense, or atrophied muscles. It also directly alleviates anxiety and depression by decreasing cortisol production while boosting serotonin. Massage enhances immunity (we also use acupuncture for better immunity in our Red Bank office), a crucial function during the colder months.

We hope you’ll take advantage of our special offer and find relief from holiday stress and anxiety in the soothing environment of our Red Bank, NJ office. For stress, back pain, and a wide variety of other conditions, we offer the following types of care:

  • Medical: For serious cases of back pain, we provide Epidural Steroid Injections (as well as other cortisone injections) in our Monmouth County pain management center. Our Medical Director also coordinates an entire team of healthcare practitioners—from chiropractors to physical therapists and acupuncturists—so that we fully address all of your physical and emotional needs.
  • Chiropractic: Many of you instinctively visit a chiropractor for back pain, but this type of care—particularly the type of chiropractic used in our Red Bank office—is also helpful for stress, tension, and the general, overall health of your body. Instead of focusing on specific misalignments of the spine, we ensure the proper alignment of the entire spine. This means that your central nervous system works properly so it can coordinate properly all the functions of the body such as sleep, digestion, and immunity.
  • Physical Therapy: In addition to relieving pain, PT also helps to get you moving again, an essential component in feeling better mentally.
  • Acupuncture: We’ve included acupuncture in our practice because it so accurately reflects two of our main objectives: to help patients deal with pain without drugs (it provides really excellent pain management) and to simultaneously address emotional and physical suffering.

To enter the running for a free massage, visit this link. To learn more about Monmouth County pain management, contact our Red Bank, NJ rehabilitation office.

 

*Promotion valued up to $60.00.

Contributed by Dr. Thomas Dandrea
P 732-345-1377 | F 732-936-9493 | Email Dr. Dandrea
http://www.monmouthspine.com
Posted in Massage Therapy | Leave a comment