Thoracic Spine Injury

Exceptional Pain Management Services

For almost 30 years, a team — that currently includes five fellowship-trained physicians — at Pain Specialists of Iowa has been providing care at the Mercy Hospital Center for Pain Medicine. This center was founded in the early 1980s at Mercy Medical Center by Dana L. Simon, M.D., who also participated in pain education and guidelines development. The physicians practice at Mercy Medical Center and also now see patients at their freestanding practice, which opened in January 2010 in Clive, IA.

The largest pain medicine practice in the metropolitan area, Pain Specialists of Iowa has a staff consisting of board-certified and eligible physicians who have completed residency training in anesthesiology and pain medicine. These physicians see patients at Mercy Medical Center, its freestanding clinic in Clive, IA, and at multiple satellite clinics in Central Iowa.

At Pain Specialists of Iowa, services are in place to manage a variety of conditions, including, but not limited to, complex regional spine syndrome, spinal injury, disc herniation, degenerative disc disease, shingles, trigeminal neuralgia, neuropathy, postlaminectomy syndrome, spondylosis, spondylolisthesis, spinal stenosis and piriformis syndrome. Therapies are also available to ease the pain caused by cancer and its associated treatments, such as chemotherapy.

“There are very few types of pain that we do not treat at Pain Specialists of Iowa,” says Dr. Simon. “While degenerative disc disease, disc herniation and arthritic changes of the lumbar and thoracic spine constitute the majority of the cases we see, we also treat chest wall, rib, abdominal and cancer pain conditions.”

Neuropathy or pain conditions associated with nerve injury or disease, which may be seen in patients with diabetes, hypothyroidism and cancer, for example, are also treated aggressively. For those patients with pain that is refractory to initial multimodality therapies, advanced techniques, including radiofrequency rhizotomy, spinal cord stimulation and spinal or epidural pump infusions have been performed in the Pain Center for many years.

At Pain Specialists of Iowa, the full spectrum of diagnostic and pain management modalities is provided to patients. More conservative methods offered include physical, psychological and aquatic therapies, while invasive techniques include epidural and transforaminal injections and neuromodulation (spinal cord stimulation and spinal medication strategies). Epidural and transforaminal injections target, under X-ray-control, specific nerves suspected to cause or transmit the pain.

Types Of Spinal Cord Injuries

Staying fit and maintaining a healthy weight is one important thing to avoid any spinal injury. As seen by Dr David Gater director of Spinal Cord Injury medicine at the University of Michigan Health System, obese individuals carries high risk of spinal injury. In fact 60 percent of his patients who has spinal cord injury are obese ( News Medical 2004 )

Generally spinal cord injuries are categorized into two namely complete spinal cord injuries and incomplete spinal cord injuries. The former injury comprise of injuries that leads to complete loss of function or paralysis below the area affected while the latter injury lead to some feeling and sensation below the area affected or under the point of injury. The degree of function or dysfunction depends on how severe the spinal cord is damaged. Read further for complete details of the types of spinal cord injuries .

Complete Spinal Cord Injuries

Complete Spinal Cord Injuries leads to complete tetraplegia or paraplegia. Complete tetraplegia is distinguished by loss of movement in the arm or hand although it really depends on the location of the injury, some still retain movement in the hand or arm.

Complete paraplegia is distinguished as loss of nerve function and motor skills permanently which leads to loss of feeling and movement in the legs, sexual region, bladder and bowel. The hands and arms save its normal function. Although there are some individuals who are lucky enough since they can still move their trunk but with limitation. They can still stand or walk but is assisted with certain equipment and only for short distances. But in most cases complete paraplegics do get around with use of self-propelled wheelchair.

C1 – C8 . These injuries in the cervical region cause quadriplegia or paralysis of the lower and upper extremities.

• C1 – C3 . Here the patient’s legs and arms are paralyzed but they have full control in the movement of their head. They can speak and swallow, however they need mechanical ventilator to breathe. • C7 – C8 . Patients can strengthen and bend their elbows and they can use some of their fingers. Weakness in breathing is present.

T1 – T12 Thoracic Spinal Cord Injury . This level of injuries is rare since this part of the spine is protected by the rib cage.

• T1 – T9 . Lower body is completely paralyzed.

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