<img class="alignright wp-image-5774" src="https://www.drfields.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/JSES-Reviews-Reports-and-Techniques.-Musculoskeletal-500x419.png" alt="Chronic Pain Management" width="350" height="293" />
<h2>Chronic Pain Management:</h2>
<h2>Musculoskeletal Pain</h2>
Pain can be defined as a feeling of distress, suffering, or agony caused by the stimulation of specialized nerve endings in the body resulting from injury or disease. Musculoskeletal pain affects the muscles, ligaments, tendons, and bones. When a person suffers from musculoskeletal pain, their quality of life is reduced, and they seek treatment options for chronic pain management.

As a person ages, musculoskeletal diseases increase in frequency. Millions of Americans suffer from arthritis, a chronic musculoskeletal disease that often leads to joint replacements.
<h2>What Is Chronic Pain?</h2>
Chronic pain is pain that continues or recurs over a prolonged period. Chronic pain, however, can range from mild to severe and last weeks, months, or longer.

Another type of pain is acute pain. Acute pain is intense and can last a few seconds to hours or days. This severe pain should wane as healing of the injury or disease occurs.
<h2>What Causes Musculoskeletal Pain?</h2>
Pain often acts as a warning that tissues are being damaged. There are different reasons for musculoskeletal pain. Soft tissue, like muscles, tendons, and ligaments, can become damaged by wear and tear from various activities.

Trauma from falls, accidents, sprains, dislocations, and fractures can also damage musculoskeletal tissue. Musculoskeletal pain can be caused by any trauma to the muscles, ligaments, tendons, bones, and other soft tissue of the joint.

Very often, the pain in a joint is due to ligament and/or tendon injury. Ligaments and tendons are the main connective tissue structures that stabilize and move joints. Unfortunately, these soft tissue structures have a poor blood supply and often fail to heal completely once injured.

<strong>That is why an old injury sets into motion a chronic cycle that can rear its head up years later.</strong> Ligament tears and injuries alter joint mechanics. They cause the joint to move abnormally. An injured area remains weak. Month after month, and year after year, that weakened joint, moving abnormally, causes degeneration of the joint.
<h2>How Can Chronic Pain Be Managed?</h2>
Regenerative Orthopedics, including Prolotherapy, PRP, and Stem Cell Therapy, effectively repair the damaged, weakened ligaments and tendons. These treatments build stronger tendons and ligaments that can stabilize the joint structures. With treatment, the weakened soft tissue is healed, and the patient’s pain is reduced or eliminated.
<h2>Types of Regenerative Orthopedics:</h2>
<ul>
 	<li><strong>Prolotherapy </strong>involves injections given into and around the entire painful or injured area. Prolotherapy strengthens ligaments and tendons by inducing repair through stimulating growth factors and boosting the body's healing mechanism.</li>
 	<li>PRP involves the injection of the person's platelets. These platelets release growth factors that stimulate recovery in blood-poor tissue, such as tendons. PRP is great at accelerating the regeneration of soft tissue injuries such as knee meniscus tears.</li>
 	<li><strong>Stem Cell Therapy </strong>describes the use of a person's adult mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) taken from the individual’s bone marrow or adipose (fat) tissue. Stem Cell Therapy is typically done in more advanced cases of joint degeneration or injury.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Regenerative Orthopedics for Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain</h2>
Regenerative Orthopedics provides significant relief of chronic musculoskeletal pain in the neck, back, knee, elbow, foot, hand, shoulder, and wrist. The use of Regenerative Orthopedics results in a decrease in pain and an increase in function.

These regenerative therapies are effective for arthritis, ligament injury, tendinopathy,  joint instability, labrum or meniscus injury, joint hypermobility syndrome, and many other musculoskeletal pain conditions.

Regenerative Orthopedics are viable alternatives to pain medications, NSAIDs, cortisone (steroid) injection, and surgery.

Musculoskeletal diseases are extremely common causes of pain and result in devastating consequences to millions of people. Non-Surgical Regenerative Orthopedics are effective treatment options that do not just manage pain but effectively repair the underlying source of the pain...the ligament and tendon injuries.

Many patients come to us tired of ‘managing’ their chronic pain with NSAIDs, narcotic medications, various therapies, and exercises that fail to provide relief. That's because they do not get to the root of the problem.

The <i>Journal of Prolotherapy</i> says, "Clinicians make their recommendations to patients on the basis of their knowledge of human physiology in both health and disease. Since most chronic pain results from the degeneration and injury of musculoskeletal structures such as ligaments, tendons, other soft tissues and joints, and the nerves that support them, then regenerative injection therapy (Prolotherapy) makes physiological sense. Prolotherapy should be one of the preferred therapies when clinicians, including doctors, nurses, and other allied health care professionals, discuss treatment options with patients who suffer from musculoskeletal pain."2
<h2>Don't Just Manage Your Pain, Repair It</h2>
Do you suffer from musculoskeletal pain, such as <a href="https://www.drfields.com/conditions/chronic-pain/chronic-knee-pain/">chronic knee pain</a>? <a href="https://www.drfields.com/conditions/chronic-pain/chronic-shoulder-pain/">Chronic shoulder pain</a>? <a href="https://www.drfields.com/conditions/chronic-pain/chronic-neck-pain/">Chronic neck pain</a>? <a href="https://www.drfields.com/conditions/chronic-pain/chronic-elbow-pain/">Chronic elbow pain</a>? If you are afflicted with chronic musculoskeletal pain, Regenerative Orthopedics may be your answer. <a href="https://www.drfields.com/contact/">Contact us for a consultation</a> to see if you are a candidate or to get a second opinion for a recommended surgery. At OrthoRegen®, we want to help you achieve your goals of optimal health and sustained wellness. We will use the most effective and least invasive methods in your treatment. Don't just manage your pain; repair it with Regenerative Orthopedics. Call today at 310-453-1234.
<h2>References</h2>
1 Haunschild, Eric D., et al. "Biologics in shoulder and elbow pathology." <i>JSES Reviews, Reports, and Techniques</i> 1.1 (2021): 1-6.

2 Hauser, RA, Maddela, H., et al. "Journal of Prolotherapy International Medical Editorial Board Consensus Statement on the Use of Prolotherapy for Musculoskeletal Pain."<i>Journal of Prolotherapy.</i> 2011;3(4):744-764.