Pain Management

Chronic pain often persists in spite of our best treatments. However, if you have chronic pain that is interfering with your daily life, our pain management specialists can help you manage that pain to regain maximum function. The Clinic for Comprehensive Pain Management is a combined initiative between anesthesiology and physical medicine and rehabilitation that includes pain physicians, psychologists, pharmacists, physical therapists and nurse practitioners who have expertise in pain management.

We provide the latest treatment advances to help reduce or alleviate your pain in the safest manner possible with a focus on non-opioid treatments. This may include medications, interventional procedures and/or pain-control devices to enable you to fully engage in atraumatic exercise and neurobehavioral counseling that serve as the foundation of successful chronic pain management.

We work closely with other specialists within the University of Minnesota Health system to coordinate your care and to develop the best and safest possible plan for managing your pain. If you need surgery, or you are in the hospital for other reasons, we also work with your doctor to help control your pain during your hospitalization.

We provide specialty care for (but not limited to):

Opioid medications for chronic non-cancer pain

We aim to provide you with the safest, most effective care possible. Opioid medications are associated with high risk and limited long-term benefit for chronic non-cancer pain. We do not take over opioid prescribing for patients with chronic non-cancer pain. We will help your primary care or referring provider determine if you might be a good candidate for chronic opioid-based medications for pain management. In such cases, we will work with your healthcare provider to develop an appropriate, usually low dose, opioid regimen. Your referring provider may opt to continue or start opioid medications. In certain cases, we will temporarily prescribe opioid medications after you have signed an agreement with your referring healthcare provider stating he or she will take over prescribing responsibilities after a safe dose has been established.