00:00When you're in pain, you want one thing, relief.
00:03Today, we're joined by the Medical Director of the Pain Management Clinic at the DMC Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, Dr. Mamou Sabah, to talk about how pain management specialists can help and the treatment options available at the DMC.
00:19Dr. Sabah, good morning and welcome.
00:22Good morning. Thank you for having me.
00:24When should someone see a pain management specialist?
00:28Well, Mason, if a patient's been experiencing pain for a prolonged period of time, if they've been seeing their primary care physician, or if the pain is just not responding to conservative measures, they should see a pain physician as quickly as possible.
00:43The sooner the patient sees a physician, the better the outcomes are.
00:46One thing that we discuss with patients sometimes is don't let previously failed attempts discourage you.
00:51When someone sees a pain management specialist at the DMC, what can they expect?
00:58One thing that we pride ourselves at is, you know, we identify the root cause of the problem.
01:04Patients that have been dealing with chronic pain, part of the issue is they're not understanding where their pain is coming from.
01:11And it's very important to identify the root cause.
01:13Once you identify the root cause, then treatment is that much easier.
01:17You know, there's a lot of misconceptions about pain management.
01:20One of the misconceptions are is that the physicians treat the symptoms only, that the patient's coming in with pain and the physician's going to treat them with medication management at all just to try and make the pain more tolerable.
01:32That's not true.
01:34Again, the goal is to identify the problem and correct it.
01:38Dr. Spauld, what makes pain management clinic at the DMC Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan so unique?
01:47Well, you know, one thing is that under one roof, we have a variety of physicians, all diagnostic testings available to make it easier for the patient.
01:56Secondly, ease of access.
02:00I mean, we have specialized procedural suites to where a patient is able to have some of these more advanced procedures, same day, outpatient, and sometimes as little as an hour.
02:10That's important to patients.
02:11They want to be able to come in and out as quickly as possible, and we're able to offer them that.
02:16Well, what are some of the conditions the DMC's pain management team treats?
02:21That's a great question.
02:22I mean, we treat all conditions, acute and chronic, back pain, neck pain, joint pains, muscle pain, tendon pains, nerve pains, cancer pain.
02:32If you have any condition of pain, primarily due to the nervous system or to the musculoskeletal system, we can help.
02:41Well, I didn't know that.
02:42I thought once those things happened, that was it.
02:45At the DMC, when treating pain patients, what is the ultimate goal?
02:51The ultimate goal is to achieve the patient's goal.
02:55That's number one.
02:56But then we want to take it a step further than that.
02:58We want to be able to educate the patient thoroughly on what their condition is so that they can adapt and change their lifestyle and get into a lifestyle to where the pain is not going to affect their function and quality of life.
03:14We want to make sure that the patients stay on top of it, right?
03:17I mean, we're here to help, and we want to guide them.
03:19So that's the ultimate goal.
03:22Well, with that answer, you don't have to learn to live with pain.
03:26Help is available at the DMC.
03:29To make an appointment, you can call 313-966-PAIN or visit the dmc.org forward slash pain.
