Saint Vincent Hospital’s Interventional Pain Management Center Provides Comprehensive, Technologically Innovative Treatments to Relieve Pain

WORCESTER, Mass. – October 29, 2024 – The Interventional Pain Management Center at Saint Vincent Hospital provides a broad range of comprehensive advanced treatments for patients seeking relief from chronic pain.

The center’s clinical team works closely with physicians in other specialties – including orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons, neurologists, and primary care doctors – as well as with physical therapists and clinical psychologists to manage chronic pain.

Treatments offered include spinal, joint, and nerve pain treatments for conditions spanning from spinal stenosis and lumbar radiculopathy to complex regional pain syndrome and post herpetic neuralgia. These treatments include technologically advanced, minimally invasive neuromodulation procedures such as radiofrequency ablation, spinal cord stimulation, dorsal root ganglion stimulation, and peripheral nerve stimulation. The center also provides responsible pharmacological treatment plans that include anti-inflammatories, non-narcotic analgesics, neuropathic pain medications, and appropriate opiates.

“We basically cover the entire gamut of pain management,” said Prashant Kumar, MD, Medical Director of the Interventional Pain Management Center, who is dually board certified by the American Board of Anesthesiology in both anesthesiology and pain management. “We take a very deliberate and thorough approach to understanding the patient’s background and work with them to offer all available options for pain control. It’s not a cookie-cutter approach.”

Dr. Kumar performs most pain management treatments, under local anesthesia, in a procedural suite in his Worcester office. Some of the more advanced procedures that require general anesthesia or open incision are performed at the hospital.

Ryan Daley, a 51-year-old police officer, initially tried cortisone injections for his lower back pain. When those were no longer effective, he began seeing Dr. Kumar approximately every six months for radiofrequency ablation. The procedure uses radio waves sent through a precisely placed needle to heat the affected nerve tissue in the patient’s back, causing a lesion that prevents pain signals from reaching the patient’s brain, according to Dr. Kumar. The procedure provides temporary relief for many patients, as the pain may return once the nerve regenerates.

“For me, it’s been very effective,” Daley said. “I have much, much less pain afterward. When my nerve grows back after about six months and the pain returns, I come back for another treatment. If I didn’t have these treatments, I doubt I’d still be able to work. I’m also able to continue hunting and fishing and doing all the other outdoor activities I enjoy.”

Daley added, “I can’t speak highly enough of Dr. Kumar. He’s extremely knowledgeable and he explains everything before he does it, so there are no surprises whatsoever. In my profession, a lot of guys have lower back pain. I’m constantly recommending Dr. Kumar to them.”

Dr. Kumar believes the center’s location in central Massachusetts is a major advantage for patients.  “We perform many of the same technologically advanced procedures that the big academic centers in Boston provide, right here in Worcester,” he said. “In many cases, we have personal relationships with our patients’ primary care doctors and surgeons, so there’s no breakdown in communication – we have all the information about their case. Many patients also prefer being able to get the same treatment, closer to home, in a calmer, community setting, rather than having to travel into the city.”

He added, “I take a lot of pleasure and satisfaction in treating patients with a very complex diagnosis who have failed pain management therapy elsewhere. I take the time to hear them out. I keep trying. I don’t give up.”

For more information about Saint Vincent Hospital’s Pain Management Center, please call (508) 425-7670 or visit our website.