Don’t Let Pain Control Your Life

Living with pain can change more than how you feel physically. It can affect how you sleep, how you move, your ability to work, and whether you feel up to doing the things you enjoy.

For people dealing with ongoing pain, it can also be easy to assume that discomfort is something they have to learn to live with. At Decatur County Hospital, we want our patients to know there may be options.

Keith Barnhill, PhD, CRNA, ARNP, brings more than 30 years of experience in pain management and nurse anesthesiology to patients at DCH. His work has focused on pain management and pain education since 2001, giving him extensive experience helping patients better understand their pain and explore treatment options that fit their individual needs.

Pain can have many causes and can look different from one person to the next. Patients may experience pain in the neck, shoulder, hip, knee, lower back or spine, or may be dealing with pain related to a chronic condition or injury. That is why effective pain management starts by looking at the individual and not simply the symptom.

Through DCH Pain Services, Barnhill can evaluate a patient’s condition and help determine which treatment approach may be appropriate. Available options include medication management as well as procedures such as epidurals, nerve blocks, nerve injections, radiofrequency ablation, trigger point injections and more.

The goal of pain management isn’t simply to put a number on your pain. It’s to help you move more comfortably, function better and get back to more of the activities that matter to you.

Having access to this level of specialized care close to home also means patients in southern Iowa don’t necessarily have to travel to a larger city to begin exploring their options.

If pain has started deciding what you can and cannot do, it may be time to find out what can be done about it.

DCH Pain Services is accepting new patients. For more information or to schedule an appointment, call the DCH Outpatient Clinic at 641-446-2285.