Pain Management

When conventional medicine doesn’t relieve your acute or chronic pain, it’s time to turn to the experienced interventional radiologists at Invision Sally Jobe. Their highly trained physicians perform many minimally invasive procedures that directly relieve pain or treat the condition causing your discomfort at their offices in Littleton, Aurora, Denver, Parker, Golden, Greenwood Village, and Sky Ridge Medical Center in Lone Tree, Colorado. If you struggle with pain, call Invision Sally Jobe at 720-493-3700 to schedule a pain management consultation today.

How does pain management improve my health?

Your comfort is always the most important reason for pain management, but relieving your pain also improves your overall health and well-being.

Prolonged pain often means you have inflammation causing tissue damage instead of healing. Ongoing pain delays your recovery by disrupting your sleep and preventing you from engaging in healing treatments like physical therapy.

Untreated pain also affects your nervous system. The stress caused by unrelenting pain makes your nerves overly sensitive, which adds to the pain cycle.

How do radiology specialists support pain management?

Interventional radiology uses real-time imaging techniques — computed tomography (CT) scans, ultrasound, musculoskeletal ultrasound, fluoroscopy (real-time X-rays), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) — to perform minimally invasive, pain-relieving procedures.

Radiologists perform interventional procedures using a vast array of instruments uniquely designed to treat problems inside your body. Some interventions directly target pain; others ease your pain by treating the underlying condition.

What interventional treatments directly target pain?

Your Invision Sally Jobe radiologist may recommend interventional pain management treatments, such as:

Nerve blocks

A nerve block is an injection containing a local anesthetic that stops nerves from sending pain messages to your brain.

Joint injections

Joint injections may contain corticosteroids, hyaluronic acid, or other medications to reduce inflammation and improve joint movement.

Epidural corticosteroid injections

Your interventional radiologist injects corticosteroids into the spine’s epidural space where nerve roots reside, eliminating the nerve inflammation causing your pain.

Radiofrequency ablation

Your provider uses a needle-like device to send a short burst of radiofrequency energy into a tumor. The energy destroys the cancer cells. They may also use radiofrequency ablation to wound a nerve, blocking pain messages and giving you long-lasting pain relief.

What pain management procedures target the underlying disease?

Interventional radiologists perform minimally invasive procedures to treat problems in every body system. They make a tiny incision, insert a thin, flexible tube (catheter) into a blood vessel, and use imaging to guide it to the problem area.

They send specially designed instruments through the catheter to perform procedures such as:

• Angioplasty (removing plaque blockages in arteries)
• Stenting (inserting a mesh tube into a blood vessel to restore circulation)
• Embolization (injecting substances into a blood vessel to stop blood flow and bleeding)
• Cancer treatment (delivering medication directly into the tumor)
• Inferior vena cava (IVC) filter placement (inserting a filter to catch blood clots)

If you’re living with persistent pain, call the Invision Sally Jobe Patient Access Team at 720-493-3700 to schedule an appointment today.