Sometimes pain from an illness or injury requires more treatment than simple pain relievers.
When a painful condition warrants special attention, your primary care physician or specialist may refer you to the Sumner Pain Clinic. Medicare patients are eligible for the clinic’s services, but do have to be referred by a physician.
Leading the Way
Robert W. Caughey, MD, MS
Interventional Pain Management
Medical School:
Tulane University School of Medicine
New Orleans, Louisiana
Fellowship:
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Nashville, Tennessee
Residency:
University of California – San Francisco Medical Center
San Francisco, California
Graduate Education:
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Boston, Massachusetts
Specializations
- Interventional pain management
- Back, neck, and leg pain
- Joint pain and injections
- Spinal stenosis
- Pain following spine surgery
- Spinal cord stimulator implantation
- Epidural steroid injections
- Facet joint injections and medical branch ablations
Treatments
Epidurals
The epidural space surrounds the nerves as they exit the spinal cord. In some patients the nerves can be compressed and inflamed by a bulging disc or a tight spinal canal (spinal stenosis). At Sumner Pain Clinic, we inject steroids into the epidural space to help reduce swelling and inflammation, which often leads to decreased pain. Epidural steroids may be injected anywhere along the spine, from the neck to the lower back depending upon the location of the pain.
Conditions often treated by epidural steroids include:
- Lower back pain
- Lower back with leg pain
- Pain from compression fractures
- Post-laminectomy syndrome
- Herpes zoster (shingles pain)
- Spinal stenosis
Other nerve treatments include Herpes Zoster (Acute Shingles Pain), Postherpetic Neuralgia, Sacroiliac Joint Injections, and Trigger Point Injections.
Ablation procedures
Low back and neck pain is often caused by facet joints in the back of the spine that usually occurs while standing, walking, twisting, or bending. A radio frequency ablation destroys the nerves sending pain signals to your brain and can alleviate back pain caused by inflamed and arthritic joints in your back. This therapy can be used in other painful parts of the body as well. The procedure is minimally invasive and can avoid the need for more invasive surgical procedures.
Joint injections
Joints are a common cause for pain throughout your body. Joint injections target painful joints to decrease inflammation from painful and arthritic joints.
Spinal cord stimulation
Spinal cord stimulation is a therapy that is used block pain signals at the level of the spinal cord before they can reach the brain. Small wires placed near the spinal cord and controlled by a small devices the size of a pacemaker can be used to treat back, leg, knee, neck, and arm pain.
The Sumner Pain Clinic also offers other treatment procedures. For information on other procedures, please contact the Sumner Pain Clinic at 615-328-5089.
Patient Resources
Before visiting Sumner Pain Clinic, you will need:
- Current MRI, CT or X-rays
- To make arrangements for someone to drive you home
- To arrive at Outpatient Admitting 30 minutes prior to your appointment
You can take regular medications, with some exceptions. Patients on Coumadin therapy should be off medications three days prior to the appointment. You should always talk with your primary physician before going off any of your medications. If you have questions regarding Coumadin therapy, call the Sumner Pain Clinic nurse at (615) 328-5089.
Below, we have provided new patient forms that you can download and print. We hope these resources will help you prepare for your appointment with us.