Pain physician
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The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), informally referred to as ObamaCare, is a United States federal statute signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. ACA has substantially changed the landscape of medical practice in the United States and continues to influence all sectors, in particular evolving specialties such as interventional pain management. ObamaCare has been signed into law amidst major political fallouts, has sustained a Supreme Court challenge and emerged bruised, but still very much alive. ⋯ ObamaCare may provide insurance for all, but with cuts in Medicare to fund Obamacare, a limited expansion of Medicaid, the inadequate funding of exchanges, declining employer health insurance coverage and skyrocketing disability claims, the coverage will be practically nonexistent. ObamaCare is composed of numerous organizations and bureaucracies charged with controlling the practice of medicine through the extension of regulations. Apart from cutting reimbursements and reducing access to interventional pain management, administration officials are determined to increase the role of midlevel practitioners and reduce the role of individual physicians by liberalizing the scope of practice regulations and introducing proposals to reduce medical education and training.
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Cauda equina syndrome is a well described state of neurologic compromise due to lumbosacral root compression. In most cases, it is due to a herniated disc, tumor, infection, or hematoma. We report a case of rapid lumbar synovial cyst expansion leading to acute cauda equina syndrome and compare it to similar cases in the literature. The patient is a 49-year-old woman with a history of chronic low back pain who developed cauda equina syndrome. ⋯ Specifically, in the setting of acute cauda equina syndrome secondary to a lumbar synovial cyst, urgent surgical decompression has led to resolution of neurologic symptoms in most reported cases. A lumbar synovial cyst is an uncommon cause of acute cauda equina syndrome. Prompt diagnosis and treatment may lead to reduced morbidity associated with this condition.
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Case Reports
Radiofrequency ablation of the supra-orbital nerve in the treatment algorithm of hemicrania continua.
Hemicrania continua (HC) is an uncommon primary headache disorder in which the diagnosis centers on unilaterality and its absolute responsiveness to indomethacin. We describe 3 patients with a long standing history of headache diagnosed as hemicrania continua. There was profound response to indomethacin which was limited by side effects. ⋯ After the RFA medical management was minimal to none in both patients. Though the utility and cost efficacy of RFA of peripheral nerves needs to be confirmed in well-designed trials we present these cases as an example of how this minimally invasive technique can safely provide analgesia in a difficult to treat cephalgia. Moreover if precise anatomical localization of the headache is possible then diagnostic blockade of the appropriate peripheral nerve may be performed followed by radiofrequency ablation to provide potentially more sustained analgesia in patients where medical management is ineffective or poorly tolerated.
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Epidural steroid injections have shown efficacy in short-term pain relief, but often require repeated injections in order to provide continued pain relief. It has been suggested that a continuous, locally administered dose of an anti-inflammatory compound may provide sustained pain relief at doses lower than those needed with injections. ⋯ The results indicate that a biodegradable depot designed to be placed in a specific location to provide local sustained release of an anti-inflammatory and analgesic drug may be a feasible new approach to treat radicular pain associated with intervertebral disc pathology and other spinal conditions.