Abdominal Pain

Long-lasting or recurring abdominal pain can severely affect your life and make each day exhausting. If you’re struggling to cope with abdominal pain, contact the Spine & Pain Center of San Antonio in San Antonio or Live Oak, Texas. The pain management providers specialize in treating pain that doesn’t respond to routine treatment. Call your nearest office today or use online booking to schedule a consultation to get much-needed relief from chronic abdominal pain.

What is abdominal pain?

Abdominal pain has many forms, but all cause discomfort in the abdomen — the area between the bottom of your ribcage and your groin. It can be sharp, stabbing, and come on suddenly or start as a mild ache that steadily worsens.

Abdominal pain is often due to acute health problems like appendicitis, gastroenteritis (digestive system inflammation), and food poisoning. Common causes of recurring or chronic abdominal pain are long-term conditions like gallbladder disease, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and diverticulitis.

Sometimes, chronic abdominal pain is caused by cancer or advanced kidney, liver, or pancreatic diseases. Chronic abdominal pain that isn’t due to these or other diseases is called functional pain. That is often neuropathic, meaning it’s due to nerve dysfunction or damage.

How is abdominal pain treated?

Treating the underlying cause of acute abdominal pain should quickly relieve your symptoms. You might also need to take medication to control the pain. Chronic diseases that aren’t curable, like IBD, require an accurate diagnosis and targeted treatment to minimize your pain and other symptoms.

Functional pain and severe, incurable abdominal pain caused by conditions like cancer might require specialized pain management at the Spine & Pain Center of San Antonio. The providers specialize in relieving abdominal pain that persists despite medical care with treatments such as:

• Pain relieving medication
• Anti-inflammatories
• Low-dose tricyclic antidepressants
• Anti-anxiety medication
• Anti-seizure medication
• Ketamine for pain management

Patients often benefit from complementary therapies like relaxation training, biofeedback, and hypnotherapy to help them manage abdominal pain.

If your pain doesn’t ease, Spine & Pain Center of San Antonio offers several advanced treatments.

What treatments ease persistent abdominal pain?

Treatments for persistent abdominal pain include:

Nerve blocks

Nerve blocks are injections of anesthetic medication directly into the nerve bundles producing pain signals. Some also contain anti-inflammatory drugs, usually steroids. Your provider can inject a neurolytic agent that destroys specific nerve endings for a longer-term solution. Nerve blocks for abdominal pain include celiac plexus and splanchnic nerve blocks.

High-frequency neuromodulation (HF10)

HF10 therapy is an innovative nerve stimulation treatment. Your provider implants a device under your skin that sends 10 Mhz signals to stop damaged or dysfunctional nerves from sending pain messages to your brain.

Call Spine & Pain Center of San Antonio today to learn more about advanced abdominal pain treatment, or book an appointment online.