Back pain often sneaks up on you gradually. One day you’re easily twisting and turning while cleaning out your garage, and the next you feel pain in your lower back when reaching to pick something up.

“Hmmm… when did that happen?” you wonder.

As we age, an aching lower back is often due to wear and tear, pinched nerves, or sciatica. Sometimes the pain hits you instantly during a specific movement, and other times it creeps up on you like a villain in a horror movie. How should you treat back pain– with primary care physicians, an orthopedic surgeon, a spine specialist, or a medical doctor?

The best way to treat back pain is by visiting board certified back treatment specialists. At Pain Treatment Specialists, our entire team of back specialists are specifically trained in interventional pain medicine, which means that they do not rely on surgery or narcotics for back pain relief. Instead, our team of back pain experts use anti-inflammatory steroid injections, radiofrequency ablation, and lumbar facet injections to diagnose and treat your lower back pain.

Meet the Top Back Treatment Specialists

Not all back doctors offer the same type of treatment. A spine specialist or orthopedic surgeon tends to lean towards back surgery as the preferred method of back pain treatment. However, not all back pain requires surgery in order to improve. At Pain Treatment Specialists, our back treatment specialists use minimally invasive back pain treatments, which are both highly-effective and also require very little down time. When you meet with back treatment specialists who are also pain management doctors, you’ll find that treating your back pain doesn’t have to include painful surgery. Here is one of our top back pain doctor at Pain Treatment Specialists that you’ll meet during your initial consultation:

  • Dr. Michael Nguyen: Dr. Nguyen is certified by the American Board of Anesthesiology in pain medicine, and is also the medical director of Pain Treatment Specialists’ locations in NYC and northern NJ. As a leader in the field of interventional pain treatments, colleagues from across the nation travel to his pain clinics and observe his methodology and treatments.

Book an appointment today at Pain Treatment Specialists and meet with back treatment specialists who are not only the best in their field, but also excellent at listening to your back pain concerns.

How Does a Back Pain Doctor Diagnose and Treat Back Pain?

A back pain specialist, like the doctors at Pain Treatment Specialists, have extensive training and education in your back’s structure and anatomy. All of our doctors are board certified, and use their expertise to both diagnose and treat your back pain accurately. Through a series of questions during your initial consultation and a physical exam, our back pain specialists identify the root of your back pain, and then craft a customized treatment plan that works just for you. Some of our back pain treatments include:

  1. Physical Therapy: A physical therapist is an expert in exercise science, and knows how to build strength and repair your back through tailored movements. A physical therapist also works to reduce your current pain levels by using heat and ice packs or nerve stimulators. For your physical therapy appointment, you should wear comfortable clothing in case your physical therapist would like to start exercises, movements, or strength work during your first session.
  2. Lumbar Radiofrequency Ablation: Chronic lower back pain is easily treated with lumbar radiofrequency ablation, where heat energy is used to deactivate painful nerve area endings. This is a great alternative for patients who cannot tolerate steroids, but are still looking for minimally invasive back pain relief.
  3. Lumbar Facet Injection: This back pain treatment uses a local anesthetic injection into one or more of the small joints located along the side of each vertebra. If you find numbing relief from the anesthetic, it confirms that this was the specific back pain issue you’re dealing with. It’s both a diagnostic tool, as well as a back pain treatment.

Schedule an appointment today at Pain Treatment Specialists, where our back treatment specialists use a wide variety of minimally invasive back pain treatments for effective pain relief.

What Are Pinched Nerves?

A common source of back pain is pinched nerves. This happens when too much pressure is put on a nerve by surrounding tissues, like tendons, bones, or muscles. When this excess pressure is applied, it causes the nerve to malfunction, which means you’ll feel tingling, numbness, and extreme pain. Pinched nerves can occur anywhere in your body, from your lower back, to your wrist, to your back.  If you suffer from the following symptoms, you may have a pinched nerve in your back:

  • Your back muscles feel weak in a specific area
  • A feeling of numbness or lessened sensation in the area where the pinched nerve exists
  • The tingling “pins and needles” sensation in your back
  • Sharp pain
  • The sensation that part of your back has “fallen asleep”
  • Increased pain while you sleep

The best way to diagnose and treat your back pain is contacting a back treatment specialist, like the pain doctors at Pain Treatment Specialists. Here, you’ll find a team of Harvard trained back pain doctors who use minimally invasive back pain treatments for pinched nerves, sciatica, and lower back pain.