Pain Medicine

1. General information

The Pain Medicine Department of Dongguan People's Hospital was established in 2015. It currently has 6 full-time physicians, including 2 Chief Physicians, 2 attending physicians and 2 resident physicians. It has 6 inpatient beds, with more than 40 discharged patients a month and more than 1,000 outpatient visits a month.

The department specialises in using treatment methods characterised by various minimally invasive techniques to formulate individualised treatment plans for patients, for example balloon compression of the trigeminal semilunar ganglion for trigeminal neuralgia, implantation of a spinal cord neurostimulator for zoster-associated neuralgia, thoracic or lumbar vertebroplasty for thoracic or lumbar vertebral fractures, chemonucleolysis of the intervertebral disc for disc herniation, and radiofrequency analgesic techniques for acute and chronic pain. It is committed to relieving all kinds of acute and chronic pain in the population.

2. Scope of diagnosis and treatment of the department

(1) Neuralgia: postherpetic neuralgia, trigeminal neuralgia, intercostal neuralgia, sciatica, phantom limb pain, stump pain and painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy.

(2) Refractory cancer pain: pain at the primary tumour site and pain from spinal metastasis.

(3) Intervertebral disc herniation: cervical or lumbar disc herniation and discogenic low back pain.

(4) Thoracolumbar compression fractures and osteoporosis: senile osteoporotic compression fractures, postmenopausal osteoporotic compression fractures in women and vertebral destruction due to bone metastasis of tumours.

(5) Perineal pain, pudendal neuralgia and chronic pelvic floor pain syndrome.

(6) Postoperative pain syndrome, scar pain and incisional pain.

(7) Headache: cervicogenic headache, migraine, tension-type headache, cluster headache and atypical facial pain.

(8) Soft tissue pain: various types of myofasciitis, costochondritis, coccygodynia, heel pain, tenosynovitis and fibromyalgia syndrome.

(9) Arthritis: scapulohumeral periarthritis (frozen shoulder), osteoarthritis, gouty arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.

(10) Ischaemic pain of the extremities: painful diabetic peripheral vascular disease, thromboangiitis obliterans, cold pain in the limbs, Raynaud's disease and other ischaemic pain.

(11) Sleep disorders (refractory insomnia).

(12) Non-painful conditions: facial spasm, Meige syndrome, facial neuritis (facial palsy) and intractable hiccups.

3. Special minimally invasive interventional procedures of the department

(1) Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) (for postherpetic neuralgia and other refractory pain).

(2) Implantation of an intrathecal drug delivery system (for cancer pain, refractory neuralgia, etc.).

(3) Radiofrequency thermocoagulation plus collagenase disc dissolution for cervical or lumbar intervertebral discs.

(4) Vertebroplasty (for thoracic and lumbar compression fractures).

(5) Microballoon compression of the trigeminal ganglion (PBC) (for trigeminal neuralgia).

(6) Sacral nerve stimulation for perineal pain.

(7) Radiofrequency thermocoagulation of the trigeminal ganglion (for trigeminal neuralgia).

(8) Temporary implantation of trigeminal ganglion electrical stimulation (for zoster-associated neuralgia, secondary trigeminal neuralgia and post-traumatic painful trigeminal neuropathy).

(9) Pulsed radiofrequency of the dorsal root ganglion or spinal nerve.

(10) Radiofrequency thermocoagulation lesioning of the lumbar sympathetic nerve or ganglion impar (for refractory pain of the lower limbs and perineal region).

(11) Pulsed radiofrequency or radiofrequency thermocoagulation of the facial nerve (for facial neuritis and facial spasm).

(12) Radiofrequency thermocoagulation of the posterior ramus of the spinal nerve.

(13) Various ultrasound-guided nerve blocks.

(14) Various intra-articular injection therapies.

(15) Other treatments: shockwave therapy, small needle-knife ("xiaozhendao") therapy and silver needle therapy, among others.