Your First Visit- Get an Accurate diagnosis
You may be enduring constant pain, weakness or numbness of the limbs, decreased mobility, tingling, burning or aching pain, it may travel to other areas, and/or be associated with a reduced range of motion. Every situation is unique. We listen to your body’s signals and we listen to you. At Connecticut Pain Care (CPC), you will see Dr. Kloth and not just a physician extender. Other members of the medical staff may assist in your work-up and care but Dr. Kloth personally oversees the work-up, diagnosis, and treatment plan for every patient. Dr. Kloth will spend time with you to understand your medical history and make an accurate determination as to the cause of your symptoms. Because of his direct involvement with all patients, you are guaranteed to benefit from his personal and extensive expertise. At CPC when you make an appointment to see the doctor, you see the doctor.
At CPC, Dr. Kloth believes that making an accurate diagnosis is paramount to treating any painful condition. In order to control an individual’s symptoms we must first know where the pain is coming from. The precise cause of a patient’s symptoms is determined by taking a thorough history, performing a complete physical exam, and in the case of patients who have suffered a traumatic injury, thoroughly exploring exactly how the injury occurred. In addition Dr. Kloth will perform an extensive review of your prior treatment history including radiologic studies, nerve conduction testing, and other relevant information. Dr. Kloth will work with you to determine if you need specific additional tests to help diagnose your problems, and if additional testing is ordered, the results will be carefully and thoroughly explained at your next visit.
Once the patient’s diagnosis has been established, it is time to discuss treatment. We begin by talking with you about all the options which are available to you, and typically we start with less invasive therapies. Dr. Kloth will provide you with information that will allow you to make an informed decision regarding your treatment options. Dr. Kloth believes in taking a conservative approach, simply put, less is more. This means that we are going to try to treat your pain with as little intervention as possible. The goal is not to do as many injections as possible or as many surgeries as possible, but to address the painful symptoms and the underlying causes, so that you can get back to enjoying your life. The same general principle applies to medications. The goal is to minimize the medications you require through the use of other adjuvant therapy (injections, physical therapy, etc). The less medication you are taking the better and the less chance of that medication negatively impacting your life.
The office staff will also help you navigate the matters of insurance, the process of treatment, and the steps to recovery. CPC’s ability to offer a diverse range of treatments allows us to optimize patient’s outcomes.
Guiding principles of CPC
- Make an accurate diagnosis
- Treat the whole person
- Review and discuss all of the treatment options available to you
- Limit interventions and treatment
- Don’t let insurance dictate what is appropriate treatment
- Limit medication, more is not better
- Set realistic expectations from the outset
- An Individual Treatment Plan for each patient
Once a working diagnosis is established, diagnostic injections are often used to confirm the source your pain. Injections are typically both diagnostic and therapeutic. While we are always seeking to provide the patient with relief, sometimes the most important result of an injection is the diagnostic information we are able to collect. By discovering how much relief the injection provided and for how long, Dr. Kloth is able to isolate the root cause of the painful condition and work towards a long term solution for the patient’s problem.
Inevitably many patients will have more than one structure that is damaged. This may require treatment directed at more than one structure or source of pain. If 50% of the pain is coming from a pinched nerve and 50% from arthritis, in order to feel fully better both structures must be adequately treated. When pain does not completely resolve further investigation may reveal other treatable underlying conditions.
You are our focus and your recovery is our main goal. However despite all of our best efforts, many patients will still have some level of chronic pain symptoms. Realistic expectations will be discussed at the initial consultation so that both the patient and physician are attempting to achieve the same goals; 100% pain relief may or may not be possible depending on each individual patients condition. Realistic expectations of treatment outcome help the patient to achieve a positive outcome, expecting an outcome that is not achievable, will only result in long term disappointment and dissatisfaction with care.
The goal for all our patients is long term management of symptoms. Often the underlying disease cannot be completely eliminated and instead our goal is to maximize the pain relief and return of function with a goal toward a long term management of the problem. For these patients, management means to maximally control the pain, while optimizing patient function, and limiting the need for on-going intervention.