The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as “An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.”
Although we tend to think of pain as a symptom, it is a disease like any other, requiring diagnosis and treatment.
The Pain Clinic at Shaare Zedek Medical Center treats patients hospitalized at Shaare Zedek following surgery and patients with chronic pain being treated in the Outpatients Clinic (apart from headaches, which are treated in the Neurology Department.)
Among the treatments offered by the clinic:
- Drugs
- Invasive procedures such as painkilling injections under X-ray screening
- Physiotherapy
- Surgery, for example in specific cases of prolapsed discs.
- In severe cases – implanting devices to treat pain, such as the Spinal Cord Stimulator, which sends electric painkilling pulses into the spinal cord or a Spinal Pump, which sprinkles painkillers into the spine.
- Medical cannabis, primarily for Oncology patients and in accordance with each patient’s individual needs.
Ongoing pain is often accompanied by depression and so the Pain Clinic also offers emotional treatment, mainly through drugs. If necessary, we will refer the patient to a psychologist or psychiatrist.
Please note: The Pain Clinic does not give authorizations for any particular treatment. All treatment administered in the clinic is given after medical consideration and after getting to know the patient and his or her medical background.