A patient smiles while consulting with a doctor about pain management options.

Pain management at AHN

Close-up of a patient with hands clasped during a pain management consultation.

Who is pain management for?

Whether your pain just started, or you've been in pain for several months, AHN Pain Management can help you feel like yourself again.

There are two different types of pain — acute pain and chronic pain.

Acute pain usually feels sharp and intense. It's often caused by a specific injury, surgery, or other condition. This type of pain is a warning sign that something is wrong in your body. You may experience swelling or bruising with your pain, which tends to go away as your body heals. Acute pain usually lasts less than six months.

Chronic pain usually feels duller and throbbing and can vary in intensity. It lasts longer than six months and may continue even after the cause of your pain has been treated. It can be caused by a previous injury or an ongoing medical condition, but sometimes the cause of your pain isn't known.

AHN Pain Management treats patients who have chronic pain or acute pain with a variety of nonsurgical and minimally invasive treatments.

Pain management procedures

Because pain can happen anywhere in your body and is caused by a variety of injuries and medical conditions, there are many options for pain relief. Our experts use a variety of techniques, including medications, therapies, and minor procedures to help you get back to living with little to no pain.

Pain management injections

Injections are a common procedure to help manage pain because they can deliver medication directly to where your pain is. For many of these procedures, we use ultrasound technology to guide needle placement. Injection procedures we offer include:

Epidural

This procedure injects medication into the area surrounding your spinal cord, also known as the epidural space, to relieve pain. In some cases, we inject a small amount of your own blood into the epidural space to seal leaks in your spinal fluid after a spinal tap or epidural.

Selective nerve root block

We inject a local anesthetic and sometimes a steroid medication near a specific nerve root to diagnose or treat pain caused by irritation or compression.

Facet injection

This procedure injects a mixture of anesthetic and corticosteroid medication into your facet joints — small joints in the spine — to reduce pain and inflammation. Medical branch blocks numb the nerves that send pain signals from the facet joints, helping to diagnose the source of your pain and provide temporary relief. Intra-articular injections inject medication directly into a joint space, like your knee or hip, to help reduce pain and inflammation.

Sympathetic blocks

These blocks target your sympathetic nervous system, which controls involuntary bodily functions, to treat pain caused by it not working properly. We can target different areas of the body with sympathetic blocks:

Stellate blocks inject medication near a nerve cluster in your neck to treat pain in your head, neck, chest, or arm.
Celiac blocks target a network of nerves in your abdomen to relieve abdominal pain.
Lumbar plexus blocks target nerves in the lower back to relieve pain in your lower back, legs, or feet.
Hypogastric plexus blocks target a nerve network in the pelvis to manage chronic pelvic pain.
Ganglion impar blocks target a nerve cluster at the base of your spine to relieve pain in your lower pelvic and groin region.

Peripheral nerve blocks

We inject medication near a specific peripheral nerve outside the brain and spinal cord to help relieve pain in different areas, including:

Iliohypogastric or ilioinguinal nerve blocks for pain in your lower abdomen, groin, upper thigh, and hip area.
Genitofemoral nerve blocks for pain in your upper thighs and genital region.
Intercostal nerve blocks for pain in your chest or upper abdomen.
Occipital nerve blocks for headaches and migraines.
Pudendal nerve blocks for pain in your pelvic region.

Joint injections

These injections deliver medication directly into a joint, like your hip, knee, or shoulder, to help reduce pain and inflammation.

Bursa injections

A bursa is a fluid-filled sac that cushions joints. When it's inflamed, it can cause pain around your joints. We can inject a local anesthetic and anti-inflammatory medication directly into the bursa sac to help reduce inflammation and pain.

Trigger point injections

These injections target tight, painful knots in muscles, called trigger points, to relieve muscle pain.

Diagnosing the cause of your back pain

We can use discography or a discogram to diagnose the source of your back pain. With this procedure, we inject a contrast dye into the center of one or more spinal discs and look at any issues with X-rays or other imaging techniques.

Therapy for pain management

We offer behavioral health services for chronic pain that include:

Cognitive behavioral therapy to help you learn specific behaviors and thought patterns that help you manage your pain.
Trauma-informed care and group therapy options.
Support from a licensed professional counselor and licensed clinical social worker.

Minimally invasive pain management procedures

These procedures are alternatives to traditional surgery, using smaller incisions and specialized tools to target your pain with less overall recovery time. We offer:

Radiofrequency ablation

This procedure uses heat generated by radio waves to destroy or shrink specific tissues in the body. This helps disrupt pain signals sent from medial branch nerves (cervical, thoracic, and lumbar) to your facet joints in the spine. It can also be used to damage the nerves responsible for pain signals in your bursa, providing long-lasting pain relief.

Neurostimulation

This procedure uses electrical impulses to change the activity of your nervous system and relieve pain. We typically implant a device that delivers these impulses to block or reduce pain signals in various areas, like the dorsal column, nerve clusters along your spinal cord, and lower back muscles.

Kyphoplasty

We use this procedure to treat spinal compression fractures. First, we insert a balloon into the fractured vertebra to create space, then fill the space with bone cement to stabilize the vertebra.

Minimally invasive lumbar decompression (MILD)

MILD is used to relieve lumbar spinal stenosis by restoring space in your spinal canal, ultimately reducing pressure on your nerves and relieving back and leg pain.

Other pain management procedures

We use intrathecal drug delivery to deliver medication directly into the fluid surrounding your brain and spinal cord to help with pain.

Scheduling an appointment with AHN Pain Medicine

If you have not yet been diagnosed with acute or chronic pain, call (412) DOCTORS (412) 362-8677 to schedule an appointment with your primary care provider (PCP) to discuss your symptoms and concerns. If you do not have a PCP, you can use AHN Find Care to search for one near you.

If your PCP has already recommended you see a pain management specialist, you can see our doctors and find a location close to home.

Referring your patient to AHN Pain Medicine

If you are a health care provider and would like to refer your patient to a pain management specialist, you can find more information on the Refer Your Patient page.

What to expect

At your first appointment, we will:

Thoroughly review your medical history, including past illnesses, surgeries, medications, allergies, and family history.
Conduct a physical exam.
Talk with you about your concerns, symptoms, and specific issues you'd like to address.
Discuss your health goals, lifestyle factors, and things you can do to further prevent your pain and other symptoms.
If possible, make a diagnosis and explain possible treatment options, including the risks and benefits of each.
Schedule any necessary follow-up testing, appointments, referrals, or procedures.

AHN Pain Medicine locations

We conveniently offer eight locations throughout western Pennsylvania for pain medicine consultations and treatment.

Allegheny General Hospital Pain Medicine
320 East North Avenue, Floor 2
Pittsburgh, PA 15212
GET DIRECTIONS

(412) 359-3005