HC News

• Helicobacter pylori infection
• The Mediterranean Diet in the prevention and management of cancer
• Dr Cristina Nuño Rodríguez is a specialist in Radiation Oncology at HC Cancer Center
• HC Marbella’s Nuclear Medicine Unit has been accredited as a centre of excellence for PET-CT.
• HC Marbella, the first hospital in Andalusia to acquire the CORI robot for knee joint replacement
• El Dr. Hernández Rubiño participa en el Libro Blanco de la SEORL-CCC con un capítulo dedicado a la Resonancia Magnética en el Diagnóstico de la Patología del Oído Medio
• La Dra. Casilda Llácer Pérez se incorpora a HC Cancer Center como especialista en oncología médica, tumores digestivos y genitourinarios
• Remar para dejar atrás el cáncer de mama
• Obesity is a chronic, non-transmissible, multifactorial condition
• Dr. Wilfredo Iglesias, Internal Physician, joins the general medicine team
• More news

What is an anesthesiologist who specializes in pain management?

Anesthesiology is a relatively new medical specialty; doctors specializing in anesthesiology are in charge of giving the greatest security to the whole surgical process, before surgery, during surgery and in recovery, minimizing the risks and providing the highest quality Assistance.

Although not all anesthesiologists perform it, some of us are dedicated to the chronic pain control process globally.

Anesthesiologists are increasingly involved in the treatment of extra-surgical pain, what treatments / interventions?

The treatment of pain must be multidisciplinary; the pain therapist anesthesiologist gives a more global vision. Nonsurgical patient treatment is becoming increasingly important. For example, 80% of people develop low back pain throughout their lives, older patients develop peripheral and spinal arthritis that is very painful, oncological patients deserve a good quality of life and improvement of their pain, neuropathic pain etc. All of it is currently affordable and can be improved; our patients deserve the best from us to live with the maximum normality.

What is the difference between acute pain and chronic pain?

The main difference between the two is the duration, setting a margin of 6 months to define a pain as chronic. Obviously it is not necessary to wait so long to start the treatment of the same, patients should not endure pain, acute pain is treated and pain that presumably will be chronically the results are ostensibly better if treatment is instituted early.

What treatments exist for pain?

Since the first units of pain appeared in the 1950s the therapeutic arsenal has developed remarkably. Depending on the type of pain, there are possibilities of various treatments. We have medication that acts by different routes of action and specific techniques have been developed such as infiltrations, radiofrequency, neurostimulation, intrathecal infusions of medication … that more specifically attacks the pain.

What kinds of pain can be controlled?

We differentiate three types of pain, the somatic, the neuropathic and the mixed, and all are improved with the appropriate treatment and started at the right time.

How has pain suppression improved in recent years?

Very much. The drugs available non-pharmacological therapies such as rehabilitation, physiotherapy, new invasive techniques, ostensibly improve the quality of life of our patients.

In the units of pain, we help our patients in a positive way for the best results so that they carry out their life with the most normality possible.

Dr. Darío Ballesteros Chaves.

Specialist in Anesthesiology and Pain Unit.

August 24, 2017