Pain Specialist Moves to Williston | Video

Chris Williams | 11/8/2012

A job in the oil field has the potential to pay good money, but it can be back breaking work. An injury on the job can leave some workers with severe pain in their back, neck, or joints. Taking medication might help ease the pain, but a new doctor at Mercy Medical Center can keep the pain away.

Oil workers use heavy equipment every day, and one wrong move can be costly.

"A lot of patients who are in manual labor, for instance, have back pain and knee pain," said Interventional Pain Management Specialist Dr. Christine Hoglund.

Treating pain can be done any number of ways. Some take medication, but Hoglund says medicine only treats swelling. That`s why she uses other methods.

"We treat the different areas with diagnostic and therapeutic injections, physical therapy, bio feedback, physiological counseling for stress management," Hoglund added.

One of the most common problems people are coming in with is degenerate disc disease, which is like having arthritis in your lower back. It`s often too painful for patients to go through physical therapy with this injury, so Hoglund uses a relatively new procedure to fix the problem.

"Under fluoroscopy meaning under X-ray we`re able to isolate the structures of the spine to target the nerve precisely," added Hoglund.

Fluoroscopy gives doctors 3D images of the spine. With those images, Hoglund can perform a simple procedure to stop the pain.

"We do a procedure that blocks the pain signal from their spine to their brain, and they get a pain pattern relief for up to a year," said Hoglund.

During the surgery Hoglund numbs and causes a lesion on the nerve, and that stops the pain signal in the back from shooting up to the brain. After the surgery, patients are able to go through physical therapy to strengthen their back, but keeping the pain away requires constant work.

"It`s a continuum of care, and they have to be involved and get out there and exercise and get involved in helping themselves," Hoglund added.

If physical therapy is successful patients usually need the surgery only one time.

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