Nearly 65 million Americans have experienced a recent episode of back pain, and up to 84% of adults have had low back pain at some time in their lives. For many individuals, the pain is episodic, but it can become chronic and often debilitating for others. Primary care doctors are not trained to diagnose and treat complex back and neck pain. Where does the patient turn? A chiropractor? A physical therapist? A spine surgeon? A pain clinic?
"I see patients with back pain every day," says Dr. Sam Schroerlucke, a spine surgery specialist at OrthoSouth. "Most of them won't ever need surgery. Many of them need a combination of treatments like appropriate non-addictive medications and physical therapy, and sometimes a chiropractor or injections. The problem was there was not a single place where the patient could access the whole range of options, so they had to make a bunch of different appointments at different times and places, and most people do not have time for that. That's why we started Crosstown. We are your one-stop shop for chronic back and neck pain."
OrthoSouth - Crosstown, located in the renovated Sears Crosstown building in Midtown, is the only multidisciplinary pain management clinic in Tennessee. The main benefit of a multidisciplinary approach to back pain is bringing together a group of healthcare professionals from different fields to determine a patient's best treatment plan and increase their chances of returning to a pain-free life. "Our treatment plan begins with understanding how the individual developed pain and what treatment plans have historically failed. We then perform a comprehensive musculoskeletal evaluation to determine if any other unaddressed causes of pain exist," says Leland Berkwits, Crosstown's medical director and board-certified pain specialist.
"Crosstown's multidisciplinary approach allows for different perspectives as we strive to treat the patient's pain," says Berkwits. Chronic pain conditions often don't show up on X-Rays or other imaging tools or don't show up where the patient feels the pain. Often, patients have seen several different types of providers and tried many treatments before landing at Crosstown. The multidisciplinary approach to pain management fosters communication among the providers. Chiropractors, physical therapists, pain specialists and orthopedic surgeons weigh in on treatment plans to provide solutions tailored to each patient's unique needs.
In addition, Crosstown has a state-of-the-art procedure suite that allows Dr. Berkwits to use X-ray-guided procedures to pinpoint and often treat the specific source of the pain. For patients who have had previous spinal surgery and persistent back, leg or neck pain, Crosstown provides spinal cord stimulation that involves passing wires into the spine and connecting them to a computer that blocks pain signals and provides significant pain relief.
After evaluation, if it is determined that a patient would benefit from surgery, Crosstown's affiliation with OrthoSouth provides patients access to dozens of skilled surgeons and seamless referrals and scheduling. "Sometimes it turns out that a bad hip or knee is causing the patient to limp, which aggravates their back. Or maybe a shoulder problem is making their neck hurt",
says Dr. Schroerlucke. "Lee Berkwits and his team are great at figuring all that out."
In addition to Drs. Berkwits and Schroerlucke, the Crosstown team includes Physical Therapists
Cory Heinkel and Nancy Hickman, Chiropractor Dr. Jennifer James, Physician Assistant TJ Fisher
and Nurse Practitioner Angela Marshall.
We are your one-stop shop for chronic back and neck pain