While fibromyalgia is a little known disease for many, it was the main topic of a CBS 10News LIVE TV show in the Tampa Bay area on Nov. 6. Dr. Ashraf Hanna, from the Florida Spine Institute, was invited to participate in the program and discuss treatments and procedures, as well as to increase awareness about a disease characterized by chronic pain.
Alongside interviews with patients who suffer from fibromyalgia, Dr. Hanna spoke about his work treating patients with the many conditions associated with the disease. “I have been practicing pain management at the Florida Spine Institute for the last 20 years. I have seen and treated many patients who suffer from back, neck, hip, knee pain as well as chronic pain associated with Fibromyalgia, CRPS/RSD, Lyme, Peripheral Neuropathy, Phantom Pain, and many other conditions,” he said in a press release.
Dr. Hanna, who is a board certified physician and director of pain management at the Florida Spine Institute in Clearwater, Florida, added that the facility provides multi-disciplinary modalities to treat fibromyalgia, including acupuncture, physical therapy, a comprehensive wellness program, medication management, psychiatric care, and interventional pain management procedures like steroid injections and minimally invasive surgery.
“We can customize the right treatment for each patient, instead of being limited to only one minimally-invasive procedure like laser spine surgery,” he said. “Our Spinal Cord Stimulator Implant has helped a lot of patients by basically using a small, implantable device to replace pain with a more pleasant sensation. We use it to treat patients with intractable back pain [who] have had failed back surgery as well as peripheral neuropathy and CRPS.”
Regarding breakthrough treatments, the physician spoke about Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA), a treatment for neck, back, hip, and knee pain that has proven superior to laser spine surgery, due to its less invasive nature. Also, “IV Ketamine Infusion Therapy (…) is having extraordinary results. This is an excellent treatment for patients suffering from CRPS/RSD, which is Complex Regional Pain Syndrome,” said Dr Hanna.
While CRPS/RSD is a disease that can cause excruciating moments of pain, the IV Ketamine Infusion Therapy may help by “blocking receptors in the brain that are responsible for releasing chemicals that cause inflammation of the nervous system, which in turn cause these symptoms. It is very effective in treating CRPS, Fibromyalgia, Lyme Disease and Treatment-Resistant Depression with excellent results,” Dr. Hanna concluded.