Does shoveling snow this winter have your back screaming? Are you already dreading a painful gardening and farming season this spring? Life doesn’t have to be a series of cold compresses, heating pads, and medications. Why wait any longer – there is a pain solution closer to home than you may think. Southwest Health has full-time Interventional Pain Specialists in Platteville, Wisconsin, helping you achieve the highest functional capacity possible.

So, what can be categorized as pain? While everyone’s threshold for pain differs, chronic pain is usually described as pain lasting six months or longer. This type of pain can result from an injury, disease, or a specific medical condition. There are solutions available to address your chronic pain that you may not be aware of. Living your everyday life doesn’t have to be painful!

If you have been struggling with your condition, you may not realize all the different ways your pain has affected your life. Dealing with pain is more than just managing the physical symptoms, as chronic pain can manifest in many ways, deteriorating your mental and physical health. Below are just a few ways pain could be impacting your life without you even knowing:

Depression and Mood Changes. The link between pain and depression is well documented. Sometimes it can be a vicious cycle of depression causing pain or pain triggering depression. If you are experiencing depression, there is help available. Please reach out for help.

Worsening Sleep. Whether your pain comes on during the middle of the night, interrupts your sleep, or worsens in specific positions, it can significantly affect your sleep and your body’s ability to heal when you don’t get enough rest.

Declining Mental Health. Mental Health America conducted a study with people who self-identified as living with chronic pain and found that nearly 80% of people screened reported having at least one mental health condition. Chronic pain can cause an increase in anxiety, depression, anger, lowered self-esteem, and isolation.

Increased Absenteeism. Living life with pain can mean missing out on many aspects of life that others without pain may take for granted, like the ability to wake up and go to work.

If this describes your life, why continue struggling when better options are available?

“The complexities of pain opens a variety of treatment options and techniques to consider. It is my goal to collaborate with you and your care team to provide the best treatments to regain your best quality of life”, says Lenzmeier.

All pain management procedures are performed locally in Platteville, Wisconsin.

• Epidural Steroid Injections. A technique where steroids and a local anesthetic are injected into the space around the spinal cord to improve spinal stenosis, spinal disc herniation, or both.
• Nerve Blocks. A procedure that deliberately interrupts the signals traveling along a nerve for pain relief.
• Nerve Ablations. The process renders a painful nerve unable to transmit pain signals to the brain, effectively “turning off” the pain sensations.
• Joint Injections. Treatment of inflammatory joint conditions, where a dose of any one of many anti-inflammatory agents is delivered to the affected joint.
• Trigger Point Injects. Used to help soothe muscle pain, especially in your arms, legs, lower back, and neck. It also can be used to treat fibromyalgia, tension headaches, and myofascial pain by injecting a small amount of anesthetic and steroid into the trigger point to alleviate the pain.

If you are tired of taking medication every day to control your pain, tired of the side effects from those medications, then it’s time to get to the root of your pain. Reach out to Southwest Health to help you get back to an active life? To schedule an appointment today, call (608) 342-5060.