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Hospitals, Facilities and Services > St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan > 


Pain Management


What is pain?

Pain is defined as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience. Pain can be acute or chronic. Acute pain typically has a known cause, such as surgery, a broken bone or car accident. Chronic pain is described as pain that has persisted long after an injury or has lasted longer than three to six months. Pain is also individual and can occur anywhere in your body. No two people experience pain the same way. 

Why is pain control important?
Pain control is important because it can affect you in many ways. It can affect your sleep, appetite, emotions, and relationships with others.

What is a pain specialist?
For thousands of years, doctors have been helping to relieve their patients’ pain with a variety of medications and treatments. Like other areas of medicine, a new subset of doctors have become specialists in treating pain. They are focused on managing all types of pain – studying what causes it, how the body reacts to it, how different medications dull or eliminate the pain, and how other treatments can be used to relieve many painful conditions.

What happens when you visit a pain specialist?
Following an extensive initial diagnostic evaluation, your individual course of treatment is determined. Due to rapid advances in medicine, a wide variety of medications and treatments are available for acute, chronic, and cancer pain. Patients often will be prescribed medications before receiving other forms of therapy. In addition, your pain medicine doctor may conclude that a combination of medication and treatments may be right for you. Your therapy plan will be tailored to your specific needs and circumstances.

For an appointment with one of our pain care specialists, please call our Department of Anesthesiology at 212-604-7566.

What pain conditions can be treated? 

• Low back pain or injury  • Post laminectomy syndrome 
• Neck pain or injury  • Spinal facet syndrome 
• Work-related injury  • Sacroiliac pain
• Myofacial Pain Syndrome  • Spinal disc herniation 
• Sciatica  • Chronic headaches 
• Migraines  • Arthritis 
• Cancer-related pain  • Vertebral compression fractures
• Neuropathy  • Post herpetic neuralgia 
• Trigeminal neuralgia  • CRPS 
• Other chronic pain syndromes  


What services are provided?

• Acute and chronic pain management • Trigger point injection 
• Botox injections  • Lumbar epidural injection 
• Cervical epidural injection  • Thoracic epidural injection 
• Diagnostic lumbar facet block  • Lumbar facet radiofrequency rhizotomy
• Cervical facet radiofrequency • Selective transforaminal epidural injection
• Lumbar sympathetic block  • Occipital nerve block 
• Selective nerve block  • Diagnostic discography
• Percutaneous disc decompression  • Vertebroplasty 
• Kyphoplasty  • Invasive and non-invasive cancer pain management 
• Stellate ganglion block  • Celiac plexus block 
• Peripheral nerve block  • Spinal cord stimulator implants 
• Intrathecal delivery device implants   

Healthwise Catholic KnowledgebaseChronic Pain
Healthwise Catholic KnowledgebaseCluster Headaches
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Healthwise Catholic KnowledgebaseMigraine Headaches
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