Pain Management Services at UPMC

If you're dealing with chronic or acute pain, look no further than the pain management experts at UPMC.

Treatment options include shots and surgical pain techniques.

We also offer chronic pain programs that bring together a broad range of experts.

And we can help you manage or taper off your pain medicines, too. 

What Is Pain Management?

Pain management is a health care specialty. It often refers to treatments for pain from the spine, muscles, joints, and the nervous system.

When people with cancer or a terminal illness have this type of pain, their specialist often treats it. This might be a cancer or palliative care doctor.

When first-line care doesn't fix your pain, doctors who are experts in pain car e can give you options.

These first-line pain care options may come:

• From your primary care doctor.
• From a doctor after an injury to the muscles, bones, joints, ligaments, or tendons.
• After surgery.
• In the form of traditional physical therapy.

People may seek pain care when their pain has a bigger-than-expected impact on their daily lives. Or if the pain causes extreme suffering, regardless of how long they've had it.

Pain care doctors join other doctors on cases that are complex or cause chronic pain. Pain care is helpful for continued care and chronic pain flare-ups.

Our Pain Management Services at UPMC

UPMC Pain Management offers complete exams and care for people who aren't in the hospital.

You can come to us with acute, chronic, and cancer-related pain.

We'll discuss your pain, goals, and care options during our first meeting. Then we'll come up with a care plan tailored to your needs.

Finding the right mix of treatments can take time.

Most pain care plans include a mix of medical and non-medical treatment methods.

Noninvasive pain treatments

Our team of pain doctors offers a wide range of noninvasive health therapies, such as:

• Gait and postural training.
• Stress relief.
• Self-hypnosis.

These services can help improve your pain symptoms and overall well-being.

Interventional pain techniques

UPMC Pain Management offers a range of cutting-edge, less-invasive methods, such as:

• BOTOX^® shots.
• Spinal cord stimulators.
• Ultrasound-guided techniques.

These can help improve your pain as standalone treatments or with other methods.

Chronic pain management

UPMC Chronic Pain Management brings together experts to help decrease your pain with a tailored care plan.

Why UPMC Pain Management?

We all feel pain at times. But there's still a great deal to learn about it.

UPMC Pain Management works to learn more about pain and how we care for people with pain through research.

For instance, we:

• Apply the insights from our research findings directly to your care. This gives you access to the latest techniques.
• Use the Collaborative Health Outcomes Information Registry (CHOIR) pain testing with the people we treat. This innovative survey helps us know you and care for you better.
• Train the next generation of pain experts in our fellowship program.

UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh were leaders in helping people get better pain care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We published these insights in Pain Medicine — the official journal of the American Association of Pain Management (AAPA). It outlined best practice guidelines for video and phone visits for chronic pain.