Pain Medicine

The Department of Pain Medicine of Qilu Hospital of Shandong University is an independent clinical department specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases associated with acute and chronic pain. It currently comprises a pain medicine outpatient clinic, an outpatient treatment room, an operating room, and inpatient wards. The department is staffed by 7 physicians and 1 outpatient treatment nurse, including 1 renowned expert (chief physician and doctoral supervisor), 1 associate chief physician, 6 physicians with doctoral degrees, and 1 physician with a master’s degree. The department is currently equipped with advanced treatment devices, including a shock wave therapy device, an ultralaser physiotherapy device, a silver needle therapy device, a plasma ablation therapy device, and a radiofrequency ablation therapy device. Drawing on many years of clinical experience, the department emphasizes the close integration of lesion characteristics with the biological effects of treatment techniques, and has developed a comprehensive and integrated pain diagnosis and treatment program based on pharmacotherapy, featuring nerve block techniques and oriented toward minimally invasive interventional treatment techniques. In recent years, the department has performed CT-guided radiofrequency ablation for patients with intractable pain, including trigeminal neuralgia, glossopharyngeal neuralgia, and postherpetic neuralgia, achieving significant clinical results. For patients with knee osteoarthritis, cervical spondylotic radiculopathy, and lumbar disc herniation, individualized minimally invasive treatment plans—including silver needle release, intra-articular injection, lumbar disc radiofrequency ablation, lumbar disc plasma ablation, and endoscopic transforaminal lumbar nucleus pulposus removal—are adopted according to the severity of the patient’s condition, physical tolerance, and other factors. The vast majority of patients have achieved relatively satisfactory results after treatment. In addition, the department performs spinal cord stimulation and intrathecal pump implantation for chronic intractable pain, with satisfactory clinical outcomes. The “Multidisciplinary Outpatient Clinic for Intervertebral Disc Diagnosis and Treatment,” established with the Department of Pain Medicine as its core, has a physician team composed of experts from Pain Medicine, Orthopedics, Neurology, Rehabilitation Medicine, and Radiology. Since its establishment, patients with complex intervertebral disc-related diseases treated at the clinic have achieved satisfactory diagnostic and therapeutic outcomes.

The department’s main areas of diagnosis and treatment:

1. Neuropathic pain: herpes zoster and postherpetic neuralgia, diabetic neuropathy, neuropathic pain caused by spinal cord diseases, post-stroke pain, trigeminal neuralgia, glossopharyngeal neuralgia, occipital neuralgia, reflex sympathetic dystrophy, phantom limb pain, etc.;

2. Neck, shoulder, lower back, and leg pain: lumbar disc herniation, cervical spondylosis, periarthritis of the shoulder, tennis elbow, tenosynovitis, myofascial inflammation, osteoarthritis, heel pain, fibromyalgia, etc.;

3. Headache: migraine, tension-type headache, cluster headache, cervicogenic headache, etc.;

4. Osteoporosis-related diseases, such as osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures;

5. Acute pain: postoperative pain, labor pain, etc.;

6. Peripheral vascular diseases: thromboangiitis obliterans, Raynaud syndrome;

7. Various types of cancer pain;

8. Certain non-painful diseases, such as hemifacial spasm.

9. Idiopathic pain;

10. Other pain of unknown cause.