Pain Management

When you’re in pain, whether from an injury or illness, you need help restoring your body to comfort and living the life you love. By working with pain management experts at OU Health in Oklahoma City, you receive safe, effective and personalized treatment for your current pain and the underlying reasons for your discomfort.

Comprehensive Care for All Types of Pain

Collaborate with pain management experts at OU Health who take time to understand your experience and offer treatment options to help you live as comfortably as possible. They understand that your body uses pain to signal a problem in several ways:

• Acute pain – Short-term, sudden pain such as a broken bone
• Chronic pain – Lasts more than six months, often caused by illness or disease
• Neuropathic pain – Damage to nervous system that causes misfiring pain signals
• Nociceptive pain – Most common; caused by internal or external bone and tissue injuries

Benefit from Advances in Pain Management

At OU Health, you benefit from the latest advances in pain management through a team-based approach that puts more experts on your side than anywhere else in Oklahoma. You’ll connect with a wide range of medical specialists who hold extensive training in diverse backgrounds and contribute to your care, whether you need surgical services or nonsurgical options.

OU Health’s pain management professionals work across the health system to provide the support you need, whether as part of Stephenson Cancer Center or any other healthcare service. In addition to education about prevention, lifestyle modification to relieve pain, and extensive assistance with medication management, you’re assured of all-around care for your mind, body and spirit.

Pain-Related Health Conditions

Various types of pain may result from a wide array of health issues, including:

• Auto-immune diseases such as Type 1 diabetes, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis
• Back injuries
• Broken or fractured bones
• Cancer
• Cuts, scrapes and burns
• Connective tissue diseases such as osteoporosis
• Depression and other mental health illnesses
• Fibromyalgia
• Headache disorders such as migraine
• HIV/AIDS
• Inflammation
• Nerve damage
• Rehabilitation activities
• Sciatica
• Scoliosis
• Shingles and other viral infections
• Strained muscles
• Surgery

Pain Management & Treatment Options Close to Home

When you work with OU Health’s pain management specialists, you receive short-term or long-term compassionate, comprehensive, patient-centered care based on your specific situation. Interventional and noninterventional approaches – coordinated across all services identified in your personalized treatment plan – may include:

• Ablation – Extreme heat treatment for tumor destruction
• Acupuncture – Thin needles placed into specific body areas to improve symptoms
• Dry needling – Helps relieve muscle tension, even for end-stage cancer
• Injections, pumps and stimulators
• Ultrasound – Sound-based imaging procedure for detailed pictures of organs
• Vertiflex® – Outpatient procedure to stretch a narrow space at one vertebral region; improves ability to stand and walk in people with spinal stenosis who want to avoid surgery

Comprehensive Pain Management to Improve Your Life

Lasting, safe relief from pain often requires several approaches, such as physical rehabilitation combined with medical intervention, including pain medications. Your board-certified pain management physician at OU Health works with you to find the best way to treat your specific condition, often drug-free, to help you:

• Improve quality of life
• Increase activities at home and at work
• Learn new skills for coping with or minimizing pain
• Overcome isolation due to immobility from pain
• Reduce sleep problems
• Reduce frequency, duration and severity of pain
• Rehabilitate from other health conditions with renewed energy and strength
• Treat ‘trigger points’ linked to certain forms of pain

Palliative Care

Call on OU Health’s pain management specialists while hospitalized at OU Health facilities in Oklahoma City to receive palliative care, a specific approach to pain management that improves your comfort after major injury or surgery or as you near the end of life. OU Health pain management professionals provide trusted care close to home with dignity and safety, no matter your age or stage of life.

Your Expert Pain Management Team

When you choose OU Health for pain management services, you work with a team of specially trained healthcare providers who understand how to help you cope with and relieve pain in multiple ways. You’ll learn how better breathing techniques and stretching exercises can help your body function better during treatment for major health conditions. And through a no-pressure approach, you and your care team will develop an individualized treatment plan that fits your particular situation.