According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over fifty million adults in the U.S. live with chronic pain. Dr. Nicholas DeAngelo, founder of the FX Spine and Performance Center in Evans, strives to address chronic pain issues in patients with the goal of getting them back to doing the things they love most and living a high-quality life.
“Chronic pain, by definition, is pain that lasts for more than three months,” explains Dr. DeAngelo. “It can be pain that irritates and annoys you every day and stops you from doing some activity that you enjoy.” Although many people seek out their own treatments for chronic pain, Dr. DeAngelo encourages those people to see an interventional pain physician sooner rather than later.
“During my years of practice, it was very challenging for patients to go to physical therapy and then see gains in four to six weeks when chronic pain takes sometimes months to rehabilitate,” says Dr. DeAngelo. “Which is why, when I developed this practice, I wanted to bring all the modalities of interventional pain treatments using ultrasound, fluoroscopy, radio frequency techniques, etc., and use them in combination with corrective exercise and neuromuscular therapy. I’m an interventional pain physician providing the advanced medical treatments for interventional pain with the focus of improving to your ability to function.”
During the first visit at the FX Spine and Performance Center, patients undergo a comprehensive medical evaluation. Dr. DeAngelo will review any imaging (MRI, x-ray, scans) previously performed on the patient and do functional screenings when appropriate. Then, he explores and discusses treatment options based on the patient’s goals and desires. “I spend time educating patients about their pain,” he says. “Then I give my recommendations for treatment and tailor the plan to what they want to accomplish.”
Dr. DeAngelo also addresses a common concern patients have about becoming addicted to pain medication during treatments. “For the last 15-20 years, I’ve been taking people off pain medications,” he says. “A lot of patients don’t want medicine – they want to fix their pain not mask it. I emphasize that we find the root cause and educate them about what’s causing their pain, and then provide them with a modality that it is more amenable to their visions and goals.”
Not only does Dr. DeAngelo have the professional experience and accreditation to work with chronic pain patients, he also has personal experience in these areas. “I broke my neck and had a perched facet. I was nearly paralyzed,” remembers Dr. DeAngelo. “I had to undergo a two level cervical fusion and I had chronic neck and arm pain for years. I also had a sciatica that I dealt with for over a year. My MRI was normal, and I went to physical therapy and tried medications. Nothing helped until I had my partner do a fluoroscopic guided procedure in order to administer steroid onto my nerve, which helped resolved my pain. So not only do I treat patients with pain, I have also experienced some of these things myself.”
Dr. Nicholas DeAngelo is a Board-Certified Anesthesiologist by the American Board of Anesthesiology and a Board-Certified Interventional Pain Physician by the American Board of Anesthesiology as well as the American Board of Pain Medicine. FX Spine and Performance Center is located at 106 SRP Drive, Suite B in Evans. To schedule your consultation, visit www.fxspinecenter.com or call 706-842-6800.
