Your Chronic Pain

At New Mexico Pain Management we provide creative, leading-edge approaches for easing or eliminating chronic pain.

We repair painful, degenerated ligaments and tendons that are commonly at the root of localized, mechanical chronic pain, such as back pain, neck pain, joint pain, and some headache pain. However, chronic pain can sometimes effect a whole person, involving many body systems, body chemistry, and the mind. Integrative medicine approaches to address chronic pain wholistically include natural therapies such as bioidentical hormone therapy, IV micronutrient pushes, innovative oral nutritional supplements, diet, acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, homeopathy, spinal manipulation, and counseling. Pain management interventions such as nerve blocks or nerve release procedures can also be used in the short term while you work on re-making yourself to a healthy, happy, pain-free person.

The Story Of My Cancer Pain
by V.C., Santa Fe, NM

I was diagnosed with breast cancer that has metastasized to my bones. The metastases are pretty severe, there are lesions on almost all vertebrae on my spine, on numerous places on my pelvic bones, including hips, as well as on my rib cage, shoulder, and neck. My muscles around these areas sometimes spasm and I experience pains that come from the nerve tissue around the bones and can be excruciating. The pains vary from sciatic pain that shoots down from my lower back and sacrum, around the hips and down to my knees or heels, or shaking pains from between the shoulders up to the base of my head, or around my ribcage when I move my arms, or pains shooting like electricity down my knees or around my waist when I move, or intense dull pains on my hips when I walk. It restricted my ability to drive, to carry things, to lift things, even at moments to walk. Sleeping at night was difficult, as I could not sleep at all due to pain; every time I moved something was hurting, twitching or shaking. At one instance I even needed my spouse’s help to sit me down and get me up from the toilet. Sometimes the level of pain, from a scale of 1 to 10, was at 11, the screaming point. I would lay on a heating mat all day long and constantly needed help to shift my body, get up, sit down, and everything in between. It’s amazing how much we rely on our bodies to do things during the day and once you can’t do it you realize how incapacitating it can be, even a simple thing like preparing a meal or holding a glass of water to drink. I was prescribed hydrocodone, a painkiller that dulls the pain for a few hours but it also made me incredibly drowsy and unable to function, such as speaking clearly, and initiated other kinds of pains such as tired muscles and stomach nausea. Another option that was suggested to me and I didn’t pursue was steroids since they create so many other problems by suppressing the healthy functions of the organs, and inducing insomnia and skin allergies. Being a stage IV cancer patient and already dealing with chemotherapy and its side effects I couldn’t imagine weakening my body even further. I need the support of my organs to help me heal and deal with the toxic overload from the chemotherapy, and sleep is important part of giving your body time to rest and normalize the hormonal/emotional balance that your body needs in order to heal. I do take minerals, herbal supplements, vitamins and eat sugar and gluten free organic foods to help me through this time. The pain in my body was so severe that I needed help beyond what I was doing.

Another doctor referred me to pain specialist Dr. Skardis who helped me tremendously with several kinds of pain injections to reduce my pain and to bring back mobility to my body. He was realistic about how and how much he could help me. He first reviewed my test results and explained to me, by using elaborate visual aid via digital software displayed on a large screen, where the pain was coming from and where it was going. Each time before a treatment he would evaluate where I had most pain and least mobility. The injections were applied quickly and some of them hurt for about 3-5 seconds as the liquid entered the nerve tissue, but never longer than that. Really, that is the only and I mean absolutely the only side effect from this treatment. Compared to being drowsy all day from a painkiller and building a drug dependency, or to suppressing your organs to function normally while creating more problems it is nothing.

Within a week from the beginning of the treatment I was mobile and pain did not bother me. It was really manageable. After a month and a half of the treatment I was completely back to normal. At this point, March 2012, 3 months after the treatment, my pain is at a minimum or non-existent. I mention minimum as I have slight joint pains during changing weather patterns, or when I receive chemo, but it is slight compared to how intense it was. My body mobility is normal in my upper body with slight resistance in my lower spine where the metastases lesions are worse. I am still slightly fragile but not having to deal with pain and not depending on crutches is a gift. I can drive and turn back by moving my neck when I need to reverse, I can carry my bag, I even went for a little mountain biking and it felt good. I’m still very careful about how much weight I can lift with my body and do take breaks throughout the day since I do get tired from the chemo but the nerve pain is no longer there. And with that fear and despair are not part of my life.

I highly recommend New Mexico Pain Management to address joint and nerve pains. The injections help the nerve tissue repair and in no adverse way affect other areas in the body. Dr. Skardis is profoundly knowledgeable and sincere about how the treatment will work. His office is professional, punctual and very supportive.