Primary Care-Based Interventional Procedures for Chronic Pain

Chronic pain interventions in the primary care setting can provide temporal relief and are best used as part of a comprehensive treatment plan. Interventional therapies may use steroids, local anesthetic, saline, prolotherapy, no medication at all (dry needling), acupuncture, or transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation. These interventions may include adjuvant modalities, such as ultrasound, to improve precision and accuracy of injection. Choice of interventional therapy for chronic pain in the primary care setting is highly dependent on the clinician, location, and cause of the pain as well as a multitude of patient factors, which are discussed in this article.