Make Pain a Thing of the Past – treatment – Physician Partners of America

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Dr. Rodolfo Gari Talks Shoulder Pain: What Causes It and Ways to Relieve It

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Cindy: Nobody wants their everyday activities to be limited because of pain, but shoulder pain can do just that if it goes untreated. Dr. Rudy Gari from Florida Pain Relief Group joins us now to talk more about shoulder pain and, my gosh, this is my life right here, shoulder pain, constant. What causes this, and is it degenerative?

Dr. Rudy Gari: Well, that’s one of the types of shoulder pain, is degenerative. Other types are traumatic. Example, my son, he thinks he’s Superman, and he was working out at the gym, and he hyper-extended his arms, and he dislocated his shoulder. We actually took him to one of the best surgeons in the country, who said, “Well, maybe he needs surgery.” He had a little bit of a tear there. Instead of having surgery, we actually brought him back to our facility and put in some stem cells into his shoulder, and he’s young enough, it actually allows it to regenerate that tear.

Cindy: So, even a tear can be fixed without surgery. That’s the first I’ve heard of that.

Dr. Rudy Gari: We’ve actually seen MRI evidence, before and after. And because stem cells regenerate tissue, we’ve seen the little mice with an ear growing out of his back, okay? That’s regenerated tissue. That’s the future of medicine, and so we’re doing a lot of treatments for joint pains through stem cells, allografts, what’s called now, regenerative medicine.

Cindy: That’s great because I know somebody who recently had shoulder surgery, and the recovery is worse than what he was going through before the shoulder surgery. It’s a long time.

Dr. Rudy Gari: It’s a big operation. Some patients need it, but it really is a big operation. It’s a very long…months, it can be, through recovery period.

Cindy: Definitely. Now let’s talk about arthritis. We think of it as being in our knees, and maybe in our hands, but can we get it in our shoulders?

Dr. Rudy Gari: We get arthritis in every joint, not only in our knees, and shoulders. We actually see a lot of arthritis in your back. Your back has 31 different bones. Each one of those bones is mounted together through these little joints, and they’re called facet joints. You get inflammation in any of the joints, shoulders, neck, anywhere, and that can cause pain, but the good thing is that it can be treated. We have to go after the source. It’s usually some sort of inflammatory process, like in the back, for example. You have pain in the back from inflammation, and once we make that diagnosis, there’s a procedure that’s called radio frequency, actually burns these tiny little nerves that cause pain from those joints. We can do it down the back, in the hip joints, knee joints, just different places.

Cindy: So, for people who are living with chronic arthritis, this could be the relief that they’re looking for?

Dr. Rudy Gari: Absolutely, and we help a lot of people with that.

Cindy: Okay, so should anybody come that’s got shoulder pain, and they think that it’s going to take more than just…like, they’ve gone for the massage and it’s not working, so they come to you? So what do you do then?

Dr. Rudy Gari: The first thing that we’re going to do, Cindy, is make a diagnosis. So, we’re going to take a good history, examination, probably send this patient for an MRI, find out whether it is a tear, arthritis, something else going on, because you have to make a diagnosis first, before you can actually go with a treatment.

Cindy: Right, and your goal is to try to find a way to treat that without having to go through the surgery?

Dr. Rudy Gari: Surgery should be the last option on everybody. Sometimes, you need it.

Cindy: Right.

Dr. Rudy Gari: But, you know, once you get it, it’s a long recovery process, so we want to do everything possible to avoid that.

Cindy: Good stuff. All right, Dr. Gari, thank you very much. You can visit their website, to schedule your same-day appointment, or give them a call right now, 844-KICK-PAIN. Dr. Rudy Gari, great to see you.

Dr. Rudy Gari: My pleasure.

Cindy: We’ll be right back.

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Dr. Rodolfo Gari Talks Pelvic Pain, Its Causes and Successful Treatments

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Interviewer: Pain, anywhere on your body can really put a damper on your life and your activities. But when it’s somewhere that’s constantly in use, like your pelvis, it can truly be debilitating. Dr. Rudy Gari from Florida Pain Relief Group joins us now with more about this. Dr. Gari, good to have you back.

Dr. Gari: My pleasure.

Interviewer: So many women that I know have pelvic pain. And it really is awful for them and they do not know where to turn. How many times do you have somebody come through your office door and they say, “The pelvic pain is driving me crazy”?

Dr. Gari: Just about every day.

Interviewer: And what in the world can be causing this?

Dr. Gari: Well, pelvic pain can be caused by a host or a variety of different factors. Sometimes these women may have some sort of endometriosis. They may have adhesions, they may have a different…some sort of a strain. So there’s all kinds of different disorders that can be causing this and unfortunately, most of the treatments that out there are just not very good. A proven example is the adhesions. If you have adhesions,..

Interviewer: What is that?

Dr. Gari: So adhesions are kinda like a… almost like a spider web if you will, but it’s your own body spider web.

Interviewer: Okay.

Dr. Gari: So like a little scaring sometimes inside, but it’s inside your abdomen, your pelvis. So, it can be pulling on a nerve or pulling on one of the organs there and can be causing pain. So what a surgeon can do is go in there and actually through what’s called a laparoscopy, go in there with a scope and remove those adhesions, and you feel much better. Here’s the problem, most of the times it comes right back.

Interviewer: Okay.

Dr. Gari: So it becomes a futile event to continue doing that. So, we have make sure that, “Hey, you know, has everything been done that can be done?” And then let’s look for some alternatives to doing the same thing that hasn’t been working. And some of the things, for example, that we’ve done, there’s nerve block called a superior hypogastric plexus block.

Interviewer: That sounds very scientific.

Dr. Gari: Yeah. So basically your pelvis has a bundle of nerves called the superior hypogastric plexus and that’s where you get the pain sensation. So some things very simple that we can do is go in there and actually put… place a long acting local anesthetic and a little bit of steroid into the ganglion to help calm it down. And there’s a whole bunch of techniques like that that we can do. There are other things that we can do for patients that are their wits end, there’s nothing that can be done, We’ve actually performed spinal cord stimulation at the… that stimulates the pelvic area.

Interviewer: Really?

Dr. Gari: So instead of pelvic pain, you have a much more comfortable sensation.where it doesn’t bother you anymore.

Interviewer: I’m thinking there are women out there right…listening that are thinking, “Well, what kind of a time commitment is that for me? Do I have to come back every week to get this stimulation so that I feel better?”

Dr. Gari: No, this actually…for the first week of the trial, see if it’s gonna work for you. So you’ll have the little trial for about a week, make sure that it’s some you’re comfortable with, that it helps you. And if it does help you, we can get that implanted. It’s a tiny little electrode, maybe the size of a string. It goes in, into the back of your spine, it stimulates those nerves, and then there’s a little generator that gets implanted under the skin about the size of a half dollar…

Interviewer: Wow.

Dr. Gari: And that battery lasts several years. You can program that in different ways and you have a lot of control over yourself.

Interviewer: So, lots of options out there?

Dr. Gari: Absolutely.

Interviewer: Okay, Dr. Gari. Thank you very much. You can contact Florida Pain Relief Group to schedule your same-day appointment. Stop living with pain, you don’t have to. You can visit their website. It is floridapainreliefgroup.com or give them a call, 844 KICK PAIN. We’ll be right back with more Day Time, so don’t go away.

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Dr. Rodolfo Gari Talks About Pain After Surgery And The Best Treatments

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Interviewer: If we’re in pain and we get surgery, we expect that to fix the problem, right? Well, sometimes it doesn’t. Dr. Rudy Gari from Florida Pain Relief Group is here to help us figure out what to do next. Welcome back, Dr. Gari.

Dr. Gari: My pleasure.

Interviewer: How often do you have people come through your door and say I’ve had back surgery?

Dr. Gari: Everyday.

Interviewer: Everyday, and some people say they’ve had more than one?

Dr. Gari: I’ve had patients have one, two, three…I’ve had one patient that’s had five back operations.

Interviewer: And are they just at their wit’s end because it’s not helping?

Dr. Gari: Unfortunately. But we actually take a lot of pride in the fact that our specialty pain management, it’s the end of the road, but it’s a nice road to be in because there’s a lot of things that we can do for you. There’s a large majority of the back operations that do very, very well for patients, and the majority of patients do well from back surgery. But there is that select few that it doesn’t do well. And so for example the chances of a successful operation after the first back surgery is somewhere between 70% and 80 plus %.

Interviewer: You’re odds are pretty good.

Dr. Gari: Very good. Second one, maybe 40% to 50%. And the third one you’re dropping down to 15% to 20%.

Interviewer: So more surgery is not an option at this point.

Dr. Gari: It’s not an option because a lot of times by the time you’ve had three back operations, in the majority of situations you should be talking to a physician like myself that specializes in pain management because by that point, unfortunately your pain has pretty much become your illness. So we can find lots of ways to help you without another back operation.

Interviewer: What do you do when somebody comes to you and says I’ve had four operations? Do you get an X-ray to see what’s been done or how do you assess the damage?

Dr. Gari: The first thing I do is to listen very carefully, so we’re gonna get a thorough history. I want to know everything that’s happened. Why did you get the first back operation? Second, third, etc. Second thing I’m gonna do is I’m going to examine that patient. Find out where the pain is and where it’s coming from. A lot of times you can pick up a lot on the examination. For example, I had a patient just a couple of days ago who came in and said he had pain in his elbow. They told him he had tennis elbow. What he really had was a pinched nerve in his neck causing that. So you have to do an examination. I picked it up because he had weakness, loss of sensation, there’s a lot of things you can pick up in the examination. The third thing that I’m gonna do is maybe an X-ray, maybe an MRI, maybe a cat scan, different studies. I want to know exactly where you are after your operations. Once we’ve come across all that we’ll establish a diagnosis and establish a treatment plan, what to do. And over 90% does not involve another back operation.

Interviewer: Isn’t that great? And what percentage involves pills? There are different ways to treat it.

Dr. Gari: Well some patients are gonna need pills, and that could be an anti-inflammatory, it could be a muscle relaxer, it could be an opioid, it could be an anti-depressant, just different things. But we want to minimize your pills. Nerve blocks or sometimes things that are called [inaudible 00:03:09] re-stimulators, which are just little tiny electrodes that we can place in your back to actually take away that pain sensation in your back and your legs and replace it with a much more gentle and much more comfortable sensation.

Interviewer: So basically you give them their freedom back?

Dr. Gari: That’s what we try to do with every patient.

Interviewer: So instead of going for the operation first and foremost, go see Dr. Gari first to see if you even need it in the first place.

Dr. Gari: Absolutely. And we will gladly refer you to a neurosurgeon or a surgeon if we need that or if you want a second opinion.

Interviewer: Okay. Dr. Gari, thank you very much. You can visit their website, floridapainreliefgroup.com to schedule your same-day appointment. Give them a call at 844-KICK-PAIN. We’ll be right back with more Daytime so don’t go away.

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Dr. Rodolfo Gari Talks Work Injuries And Ways To Avoid Them

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Cyndi: The daily grind of working in an office can cause pain that people often try to ignore, but sometimes that pain can affect your whole life and it should not be ignored. Dr. Gari from Florida Pain Relief Group joins us now with more. Dr. Gari, good to have you back.

Dr. Gari: A pleasure

Cyndi: A lot of people try to just ignore the pain, but if it’s really starting to bother them, and it’s affecting their whole life, why should they go see somebody like you?

Dr. Gari: Well because one of the things, for example, the reason why we as human beings have something called pain is because it’s a warning signal. Think of it like you’re driving your car and it starts to flash saying that the engine oil is low. You’re about to get into something really bad. So if you have pain, from whatever that may be, that’s your body telling you, “Hey you gotta go and get this checked out.” Because it can and normally does get worse if it’s not treated.

Cyndi: When you see people that work in an office environment, what kind of pain are they usually coming to you with?

Dr. Gari: Usually some sort of work-related injuries. Sometimes it’s a fall, you know. I get a lot of patients of mine that are workman’s compensation. For example that they get sent over because they are lifting boxes, they hurt their back. Sometimes they’re typing, they’re using a lot of computers, they get repetitive stress injuries like carpal tunnel. They get neck injuries, you know, from maybe reading, from having the head too low. Just about any type of activity can happen…if you sit for long periods of time, that can affect your lower back. In fact, one of the biggest pressures on your lower back is when you’re sitting down.

Cyndi: Really?

Dr. Gari: What I tell some of the patients…

Cyndi: I’ve got that. I’ve got it here, I’ve got it here. So and I tend to just think, you know, that’s just the cost of doing business. But I don’t have to live with this pain.

Dr. Gari: Well, you know, in a way it’s some of the things that we do, but there’s things that can be done. For example, if you sit a lot, you can sit on one of those medicine balls. That helps with your core muscles. Also, if you can stand, there’s a lot of these desks that you can actually raise up. And standing actually reduces the pressure on your lower back, and that helps quite a bit.

Cyndi: I’m looking into that. Back to the worker’s comp situation. How does that all work when somebody comes to you with that?

Dr. Gari: Well, the worker’s compensation was meant to help the injured worker. It’s a great program because people need help. What they’ll do is when someone gets injured, they’ll work with the worker’s compensation, they’ll get an adjuster. That adjuster can send the patient to someone like us to evaluate what’s going on. We can make a diagnosis on what’s happening, what’s causing the injury, and what we want to do is help them out and, you know, try to get them back to work.

Cyndi: Definitely. That’s the goal, right? You don’t want to have more time than you need. What about repetitive stuff like typing? I’m just thinking of everyone around me on our computers, just that alone. Do you see a lot of people coming in just with carpal tunnel?

Dr. Gari: We see a lot of that. We see a lot of people with pain. And our hands weren’t made to be typing all the time. It was meant to grab and doing things with it. So things that are not natural, they can cause a lot of injuries. And one of the things about the worker’s comp that you mentioned earlier is that if we can see that patient earlier…the studies have shown very significantly that the earlier that you treat that injured worker, the more likely that he is or she is to get back to work.

Cyndi: All right. Well Dr. Gari, thank you very much. You can contact Florida Pain Relief Group to schedule your same-day appointment. Visit their website or you can give them a call: 844-Kick-Pain. Dr. Gari, thank you again.

Dr. Gari: My pleasure.

Cyndi: We’ll be right back.

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Dr. Rodolfo Gari Talks Sciatica and Best Ways To Treat It

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Jerry: How familiar is this to you? Lower back pain that reaches down your legs. Well it’s something a lot of you could be experiencing right now. And a common cause of this, by the way, is something called sciatica. You’ve probably heard of that. Dr. Rudy Gari from Florida Pain Relief Group joins us now to explain what it is exactly. Welcome back to you, Dr. Gari.

Dr. Gari: Thanks, Jerry.

Jerry: So we hear a lot about sciatica. What is it? What causes it?

Dr. Gari: Sciatica basically is a shooting pain, shooting sensation that goes from your lower back and shoots often all the way down to your foot. The reason it’s called sciatica is because it often involves what’s called the sciatic nerve. A sciatic nerve is a large nerve. It’s your main nerve that goes through your leg and often is caused by some sort of an inflammatory process. A lot of times it’s a bulging disc. It’s a herniated disc. You twisted the wrong way. Something is pinching causing inflammation. And you get a very severe shooting sensation that can be very, very debilitating.

Jerry: So a lot of things can cause it but it’s generally related to some sort of a nerve issue?

Dr. Gari: What I tell people is, if you’ve hit what they call your funny bone.

Jerry: Yes.

Dr. Gari: When you push here it shoots down to your fingers, right? Well it’s the same thing that happens with sciatica.

Jerry: Oh got it.

Dr. Gari: Instead of pushing your elbow something’s pushing your lower back and shooting down to your foot.

Jerry: So how does this change people’s daily life?

Dr. Gari: Just last week I had a patient that came in with a severe sciatica. She came in in tears. She was hurting so bad she could not even sit. She basically had to lay down on the bed. She was just crying with so much pain that she had.

Jerry: That’s debilitating.

Dr. Gari: Yes.

Jerry: That says it all right there. All right. Let’s talk about treatment options then. How did you help this woman?

Dr. Gari: Well the first thing that I did, of course, was to make a diagnosis. After the history and physical examination I found that she had the classic symptoms. She had the shooting pain. The exam showed that she had decreased sensation, so forth. That’s indicative of some sort of a disc herniation pushing on that sciatic nerve. The definitive diagnosis I sent her for MRI. And sure enough it came back that she had a herniated disc between the fifth vertebrae and the first sacral vertebrae pinching on that nerve. We brought her in two days later. She was very heavily medicated because of the pain.

Jerry: Sure.

Dr. Gari: What we did for her, we gave her these injections that went close to that nerve root. Reduced the inflammation. The inflammation pretty much went away. She had two treatments, two injections, a week apart. This person was a marketing representative and she traveled a lot. She could not even go anywhere and she’s back at work.

Jerry: Isn’t that great?

Dr. Gari: I sent her to physical therapy to make sure she strengthens her core muscles. If she can take great care of herself, which I’m sure that she will, she can get back to a normal life.

Jerry: Which is fantastic. Is a treatment like that is it permanent or do you have to keep coming back for these injections?

Dr. Gari: This can be permanent if, and it’s a big if. For example, what caused that disc herniation to herniate in the first place: Normally it’s weak core muscles. We sit a lot. We do a lot of things. So it herniates. We get the inflammation. The inflammation ends up going away. Physical therapy, and that disc can actually shrink back. So it can be permanent.

Jerry: So you have to take care of yourself after you get the injections.

Dr. Gari: Yes you do.

Jerry: All right. Dr. Gari, thanks so much. You can contact Florida Pain Relief Group to schedule your same day appointment right now. We’ll be right back with more after this.

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Dr. Rodolfo Gari Talks Pain From Sports Injuries And Best Treatment Therapies

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Cyndi: When you’re active and involved in sports, injuries can happen at any time. But that doesn’t mean you have to live with pain. Dr. Rudy Gari from Florida Pain Relief Group is back to tell us what they can do to help. Welcome back, Dr. Gari.

Dr. Rudy: Thank you very much.

Cyndi: Let’s talk about some of the common sports injuries that you see at the office.

Dr. Rudy: Sure. Common sports injuries are usually former athletes. We’ve had a lot of professional athletes as well.

Cyndi: We know they get injured a lot.

Dr. Rudy: A lot.

Cyndi: And they wanna get better fast. They don’t wanna be out for a long time.

Dr. Rudy: Yes, yes. You know, your body wasn’t meant to be taking that kind of abuse and punishment on a regular basis, and that tends to affect the joints, your muscles, some of the nerves. So it’s just a lot of chronic pain that can be endured from that.

Cyndi: Sure. Well, let’s just say I’m out there and I get injured. At what point do I have to stop icing it at home and come see you?

Dr. Rudy: Sure. So, you know, any time that your pain lasts longer than what it should…if it’s, you know, more than a typical bruise and that sort of stuff, like, you know how long it should last. If it lasts longer, you should come in and see someone like myself so that we can make sure that nothing more than a typical bruise has occurred.

Cyndi: Well, I’m a golfer and I know that I’ve had my share of aches and pains. What are some of the types of pain that you see in golfers that come see you.

Dr. Rudy: We see a lot of repetitive motion in golfers. So if you think about the action of the golfer, there’s a lot of lower back. So your lower back wasn’t meant to twist so much, so we see a lot of low back problems, joint problems and lots of low backache.

Cyndi: And how can you help somebody with that?

Dr. Rudy: Well, you know, we’ve talked before about inflammation, and it’s the same thing. So that constant abuse and that twisting causes inflammation of your joints, your spine and so forth. We can go in with techniques that do not involve surgery to reduce the inflammation of your lower back, which will help significantly and help you get your life back.

Cyndi: Is there anything we can do at home ourselves to prevent the pain?

Dr. Rudy: Sure. One thing you can do is, number one, make sure that you always use proper technique whenever you do any sort of exercise.

Cyndi: Easy for you to say.

Dr. Rudy: That’s true. And just take care of yourself, you know, regular exercises, core exercises.

Cyndi: Core. That’s so important. We you have to think about…

Dr. Rudy: Core is very important.

Cyndi: And when you say core exercises, it’s more than just getting on the ground and doing sit-ups, right?

Dr. Rudy: That’s correct.

Cyndi: What should we be doing to strengthen our core?

Dr. Rudy: Well, anything, like, for example, one of the things you can do is you can get on the horse. And that’s one of the most effective way to strengthen your core, is when you’re almost, like, very flat, that causes your entire core muscles to contract. Try doing that for 20, 30 seconds and then try to go up to about one, two minutes if you can.

Cyndi: So let’s say this method is not working, we’re still in a lot of pain. What’s the next step? What’s the consultation like when we come and see you?

Dr. Rudy: The next step is you wanna come in and see a physician like myself, because we’re gonna take a very thorough history and physical examination. And depending on what that shows, do some imaging studies, maybe an MRI, an X-ray, find out what’s going on. You might have something that’s a lot more that’s going on there that is gonna need some intervention.

Cyndi: Right. And it might not mean a whole lot of physical therapy. It might be a quick fix but it might be something that you have to do.

Dr. Rudy: That’s right. That’s correct.

Cyndi: Okay. Good stuff, Dr. Gari. If you want relief from back pain or any kind of pain, or you’ve had that tweak and you just can’t get rid of it, you can make same-day appointments at Florida Pain Relief Group. Be sure to visit their website. It is floridapainreliefgroup.com, or give them a call today at 844-KICK-PAIN. “Daytime” will be right back.

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Dr. Rodolfo Gari Discusses About Diabetic Neuropathy and Ways to Treat It

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Cyndi: Over 29 million people in the United States have diabetes, a disease that can lead to a variety of other problems, a common one being diabetic neuropathy. It can show itself in many different ways, which means it’s also hard to diagnose. Dr. Rudy Gari from Florida Pain Relief Group is back with more. Dr. Gari, good to have you here.

Dr. Gari: My pleasure.

Cyndi: Let’s talk about diabetic neuropathy, and why is this the most common form of neuropathy?

Dr. Gari: Certainly. Well, unfortunately, it’s the most common because there’s a lot of patients, a lot of people with diabetes. And what happens with diabetes is, your sugar goes up and down quite a bit. Well, that sugar is spread throughout the whole body, especially, it can affect the nerves. And over constant and constant misalignment of your glucose levels, your nerves get damaged, especially the very small nerves, and that can cause significant pain in patients that have diabetes. Their pain is usually manifested as a burning sensation, a sharp, stabbing constant, and it can be very debilitating to a lot of patients.

Cyndi: So it’s not just a pain that comes and goes, it can be there constantly?

Dr. Gari: It can be there constantly, to the point where it’s hard for you to function with your everyday life activities.

Cyndi: I’m thinking for somebody who has neuropathy from diabetes in their feet, that can be difficult for just getting around, right? It’s not only annoying but could it affect your walking ability?

Dr. Gari: Well, the unfortunate part is that it can cause both numbness and pain at the same time, if you can think about that, because of the different fibers that are affected. So, sometimes, we have diabetic neuropathy in people that, they don’t feel as much. They can get hurt more often, but then they always have a constant, stabbing, burning sensation that can be very debilitating.

Cyndi: Sounds like an awful, awful way to live. So how can you help people who are dealing with that kind of pain?

Dr. Gari: Sure. So for the first thing, it’s the obvious. We wanna make sure that your diabetes is well-controlled. So make sure you’re seeing your internist, your family practice doctor, making sure that your blood glucose is very stable, as much as it can be. Other things that we can do is medications. There’s different ointments or different creams. And if those don’t work, there are even more interventional techniques. We’ve spoken before about something called spinal-cord stimulation. And spinal-cord stimulation is one of those things that can actually replace that burning sensation of your diabetic neuropathy with a more mild, tingling sensation.

Cyndi: So even though you’re dealing with the spinal cord, it can affect all your extremities? Is that where it all comes from?

Dr. Gari: Well, diabetes tends to affect, normally, your extremities. Usually, your arms, your hands, your legs, your feet. And the extremities, the nerves that go to extremities originate in your spinal cord.

Cyndi: Right. So that’s why you can go in there and take care of that.

Dr. Gari: Correct.

Cyndi: I know there are a lot of people watching right now who are probably thinking, “This is me.” So what kind of message do you have for them right now? Because they’ve been living with this for a long time.

Dr. Gari: Well, the message that we have is that we have a lot of options for you. Besides medication, there are ointments, there are creams, making sure that your glucose is well-controlled. There is even different types of nerve blocks that we can do that can alleviate their pain. And if we have to, we can do a trial of a spinal-cord stimulator.

Cyndi: And just having somebody say, “Your pain is real,” I’m sure is music to so many people’s ears, because they’ve dealing with it for a long time and not getting anywhere.

Dr. Gari: Unfortunately, there’s a lot of illnesses that many doctors have. Pain is one of them. All that we do is take care of people in pain, so you’re the only thing that’s important to us, and your pain.

Cyndi: That’s great news. Dr. Gari, thank you very much. Florida Pain Relief Group even schedule same-day appointments, so be sure to visit their website, floridapainreliefgroup.com, or give them a call, 844-KICK-PAIN. Dr. Gari, thank you again.

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Dr. Rodolfo Gari Talks What CRPS Is, Where It Occurs and Treatment

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Cindy: Complex regional pain syndrome, it doesn’t that like something that anyone would want to deal with. It is also called CRPS.This chronic pain condition can wreak havoc on your body. Doctor Rudy Gari from Florida Pain Relief Group joins us now to fill us in on what this is. Great to have you back.

Dr. Gari: Thank you.

Cindy: Complex regional pain syndrome sounds awful. What is it?

Dr. Gari: Yes, it does. And the reason why it is called complex regional pain syndrome is because it’s just that, it’s complex. This is something that has been going on Cindy, for a very long time. In fact, this goes all the way back in the Civil War. We have documented case studies of soldiers who actually had so much pain in their arm that they wanted to cut their arms off.

Cindy: Oh, okay.

Dr. Gari: It used to be called something called causalgia, it was called the reflex sympathetic dystrophy. The term that is used right now is called complex regional pain syndrome and what that really is, if you think about it, think about if you get pain in your hand or your arms, anywhere. Normally, that pain shoots up your brain and it stops. What happens with complex regional pain syndrome is that it becomes a vicious cycle. So the pain keeps going in circles, keeps going in circles and it never stops.

Cindy: Any particular area of the body that you see it most often?

Dr. Gari: It usually affects the extremities. It affects the arms, it affects the legs, it can actually spread, but the good thing Cindy is there’s a lot of things that we can do to help complex regional pain syndrome. One of the first things is that the earlier that we see it the better. And so it often travels through these nerves called sympathetic nerves. So what we do is what we call sympathetic blockade. We want to stop that seizure and that pain constantly going in circles but it’s a certain specialized field in medicine they use, physicians like myself, I’m an anesthesiologist, I’ve been treating this for many, many years and I’ve actually had great success. So there’s blocks, there’s something called sponcra [SP] stimulators and the earlier that we treat this the better it is for our patients.

Cindy: How often do you see somebody coming in with complex regional pain syndrome?

Dr. Gari: I just saw a patient this morning.

Cindy: Really?

Dr. Gari: This patient has horrendous, horrendous leg pain and has all kinds of issues going on. Not just nerve pain it affects his vascular system and the pain is never ending. She’s has unfortunately, has this for many, many years.

Cindy: Oh gosh. Well, she doesn’t have to live with it for any more years, right?

Dr. Gari: No, no. We have her on a plan.

Cindy: What are you able to do for her? What are you going to do?

Dr. Gari: So what we do is we can give her some medications probably to help with that pain. We’re gonna go after and try to stop that seizure if you will of the pain syndrome, blocks and we’re considering a sponcro stimulator as well.

Cindy: So get to the source, right?

Dr. Gari: Absolutely, absolutely.

Cindy: Instead of just you know, treating the…

Dr. Gari: It can be cured.

Cindy: It can?

Dr. Gari: It can be cured, yes.

Cindy: Okay. So when is it time to come see you? When they feel like this is something that has been going on with them?

Dr. Gari: The sooner the better, the sooner the better. Have seen someone like myself because we can treat you in those things that we can do.

Cindy: So, usually fingers, legs, any…

Dr. Gari: Fingers, arms. It’s usually the arms or hands or legs. It usually begins as something as mild as just bumping into the wall somewhere that can cause, like, a seizure which will just continue, where we have to stop that vicious cycle.

Cindy: It goes on and on and on. Okay, good stuff Dr. Gari, that’s really good news for so many people. Florida Pain Relief Group has scheduled same day appointments so be sure to visit their website. It is floridapainreliefgroup.com or you can give them a call at 844-KICK-PAIN. Doctor, always good to see you. Thank you very much.

Dr. Gari: My pleasure.

Cindy: We’ll be right back.

Dr. Gari: Thank you.

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Dr. Rodolfo Gari Talks Fibromyalgia: Who Gets It and Treatments

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Interviewer: In some cases, widespread muscle and joint pain can point to fibromyalgia. It will not only affect physical pain, but it can involve mental pain as well. Dr. Rudy Gari from Florida Pain Relief Group joins us now, with some help. Dr. Gari, great to have you here.

Dr. Gari: Thanks a lot.

Interviewer: Let’s talk about what causes fibromyalgia in the first place.

Dr. Gari: Sure. So fibromyalgia, we’re not really sure the exact causes of it, but here’s what we do know. So if you break down the word fibromyalgia, fibro means fibrous, and myalgia means muscle, inflammation of the muscles. What we know is that it tends to affect predominantly women, we’re not really sure why it does, but it does. And it involves a process whereby your fibrous tissues and your muscles combine to cause inflammation, and it can be very debilitating in a lot of people. There’s different things that could be done, we know what can help. For example, we know what makes it worse is usually stress, tension, so the treatment for that is relaxation and techniques to lower that threshold.

Interviewer: Is this really common, among a lot of women in particular, that you see?

Dr. Gari: Yes, it’s very common. We have a lot of patients with fibromyalgia, and the way that we treat them is comprehensively, and that involves relaxation techniques, physical therapy. Sometimes we do these things called trigger point injections, and trigger points are actually like little muscle spasms that can develop in patients with fibromyalgia, throughout your body. It’s a pretty simple technique, we just go in there with a very small needle and break up these little trigger points. We also give them medications to help them relax, and we find that with that comprehensive approach, we can give them their life back.

Interviewer: Yeah, I was going to ask you, what kind of reactions are you getting from patients who you’re helping? Because I’m sure a lot of them, for a long time, they weren’t being diagnosed. And they kept saying, or people might have been saying, “Well, are you depressed?”, and they weren’t getting to the heart of what was wrong with them. So we mentioned physical, how it hurts, but how mentally it can be so hurtful, for so many people. So what are you finding from the people that you’re treating with this?

Dr. Gari: Sure, well one of the things that would happen the last…many years ago, the first thing that we tell them is that this pain is real.

Interviewer: And that’s half the battle for so many people, right?

Dr. Gari: Yes, this pain is real, and sometimes I tell patients that, and they begin to cry.

Interviewer: Yeah, because nobody has listened to them.

Dr. Gari: No, this pain is real, this is real pain. You’re having this pain, it’s not just in your head. You’re feeling this, but the good thing is we can help you with this. And that you’d be…it’s almost as if it’s like tons of weight off their shoulders, that somebody understands what they have and that we can do something about it.

Interviewer: Do you see gentlemen at all with fibromyalgia?

Dr. Gari: We do see men with fibromyalgia, not as common as women, but we treat them the same way. This happens in both, it’s not just unique to women, it also affects men.

Interviewer: So apart from finally having somebody listen to them, and saying “Yes, I’m validating that you’re feeling what you’re feeling,” how quickly can people start to feel some kind of relief?

Dr. Gari: I’ve had patients come into the office with significant pain, mostly from trigger points. We do the trigger point injections right in the office, and they come out a different person. You can just look at their face. I wish I could take a picture of their face before and after. So it can be immediate, but that’s just the immediate treatment of the trigger points. We then go more comprehensive with everything else and make it more long-term.

Interviewer: Well, I know this is really encouraging news for a lot of people that are watching right now because fibromyalgia does affect a lot of people, and they’re looking for help. Dr. Gari, thank you very much for joining us today. Florida Pain Relief Group even schedules same day appointments. Be sure to visit their website, floridapainreliefgroup.com, or give them a call right now 844-KICK-PAIN. Doctor, thank you again. We’ll be right back.

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Treating arthritis pain

Get relief from arthritis pain in Tampa

Tampa pain specialist Dr. Rodolfo Gari of Florida Pain Relief Group is an expert in the treatment of chronic pain due to arthritis.

In a recent appearance on the News Channel 8 program “DayTime”, Dr. Gari spoke about the various symptoms of pain from arthritis and the treatment options that exist.

You don’t have to suffer in pain from arthritis. Each of our Tampa pain doctors have years of experience treating arthritis pain using a variety of techniques and procedures.

Schedule an appointment at one of our Tampa pain relief center locations in East Tampa, North Tampa and Carrollwood.

Watch the video here:

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