Pain management

Our pain medicine service provides integrative pain medicine, combining cutting edge treatment with traditional proven methods to manage pain and suffering both on the wards and in the pain management centre.

We are highly skilled at managing a large spectrum of painful conditions, but specifically have a great deal of experience with spinal injections and other interventional techniques guided by x-rays or ultrasound and treat a large number of patients with back, neck and musculoskeletal pain every month in our dedicated suite.

We believe in treating the whole patient, not just symptoms and share our medical knowledge with our patients to help them understand their condition and provide the tools and resources to manage it.

We use a variety of treatment methods as per national guidelines to reduce or eliminate problems and to decrease the possibility of pain recurrence. Through focused care and comprehensive diagnosis and treatment our pain medicine team aim to improve the quality of the lives of as many patients and their families as we can.

Conditions and treatments

We manage acute, chronic and cancer pain such as:

• Back pain
• Neck pain
• Musculoskeletal pain
• Joint pain
• Neuropathic (nerve) pain
• Post-herpetic neuralgia (shingles)
• Post-surgical pain (scar pain)
• Phantom limb pain
• Fibromyalgia/Chronic widespread pain syndrome
• Medication-resistant pain
• Complex regional pain syndrome
• Complex multidimensional pain disorders

We use a range of treatments resulting from a multidisciplinary assessment including:

• Interventional spinal procedures including sacroiliacs, x-ray-guided thermal and pulsed radiofrequency treatment
• Ultrasound-guided injections
• CT-guided radiofrequency treatment
• Qutenza therapy
• Physiotherapy/psychology pain management programme
• Medications
• Opioid management clinic
• TENS
• Peripheral electrical nerve stimulation
• Clinical research-based treatments

We are not a diagnostic service, but will occasionally request specific tests and investigations if clinically indicated.

Our service has a strong interest in clinical research in the field of pain management and draw on this experience to the benefit of our patients. We are actively engaged with the latest clinical research and recruit certain patients for any relevant trials that are ongoing where possible.

Additional information

Imperial College Healthcare Private Care

We also offer private care services at Imperial College Healthcare.

All funds generated by our private care services are reinvested back into the Trust, supporting the development of both NHS and private care for the benefit of all our patients.

Find more information about private pain management services on our private care website.