Statement on Urologic Pain
Pain involving the genitourinary tract is a real and extremely bothersome problem. We see two types of pain in the genitourinary tract; acute post-operative pain due to recent surgery and chronic pain involving the genitourinary organs.
Acute post-operative pain can be minimized, but not eliminated. We use medications injected into the surgical site and powerful oral or intravenous pain relievers to minimize discomfort. Due to recent improvements in pain control, patients undergoing several of the procedures that we perform commonly experience significantly less post-operative pain than patients did in the past. We want to minimize your pain as much as possible.
Some patients experience chronic pain in the pelvis, groin, testicles, penis, rectum or flank. Work-up of chronic pain in our practice is directed toward ruling out a serious underlying urologic cause of the pain. Examples would include cancer, stones, hernia, infection, etc. If patients have such an underlying cause of their pain, we will either treat the underlying condition or facilitate referral to the appropriate specialist for treatment. Most patients with bladder pain, testicular pain, or prostatitis do not have a surgically reversible cause of their pain, however. This does not mean that the pain is not real; it means that we do not have a surgical solution for the problem. Our practice is not structured to effectively treat chronic pain. We do not prescribe narcotic pain medication for chronic pain conditions. Narcotic medications are only prescribed for acute post-operative pain. When patients are found to have pain conditions without an underlying surgically treatable cause, we will offer referral to multi-disciplinary pain management specialists. We do not manage chronic pain conditions.
