Solutions Offered

Before your first consultation

• Please give us your doctor’s referral.
  
• Please give us a summary from your GP if the referring doctor is not your normal doctor.
  
• Please complete our FPM New Patient Questionnaire. You can download this from our website or you can call the clinic and ask us to post or email the form.
  
• Please return these forms to the clinic as soon as possible.

Pre-consultation assessment /clinic

• We may ask you to attend a pre-consultation assessment.

Initial consultation with a pain medicine physician

• A pain medicine physician will perform a comprehensive assessment on each patient. This may need more than one consultation for us to fully understand your problem.
  
• From your consultation and assessment, a pain management plan will be formulated which may include a combination of our treatment options.

What is a Pain Medicine Specialist?    Play (1:58)

Dangers of Polypharmacy    Play (9:54) 
Topical anti-inflammatories    Play 
Opioid (strong) analgesics    Play (11:36)
Understanding Pain: Brainman stops his Opioids    Play (1:46)
Faculty Pain Medicine position on Medicinal Cannabis    Read more

We often use nerve blocks to diagnose the cause of pain and to provide pain relief. They’re helpful where pain is coming from a single nerve or a small group of nerves. A nerve block involves injecting the nerves supplying the painful area with local anaesthetic to stop the pain signals being transmitted. A nerve block can help to confirm the source of your pain. Usually it will also provide immediate, short-term relief. A nerve block can also be used to predict whether another longer-lasting treatment, such as neurotomy, is likely to help.

Atlanto-Axial Joint Injection
Coeliac, Splanchnic, Hypogastric and Ganglion Impar Blocks    Read more       
Discography    Read more
Facet, Costotransverse and Costovertebral Joint Injections
Hip Joint Injections  
Ilio-Inguinal Nerve Block   
Intercostal Nerve Block    Read more  
Lumbar Sympathetic Block     Read more       
Medial Branch (Dorsal Rami) Blocks     Read more
Medication Absorption (Kinetic) Tests     Read more
Nerve Block Injections      Read more 
Pump Debug and Myelogram     Read more
Occipital Nerve Injection     Read more
Rami Communicante Blocks
Sacroiliac Joint Steroid Injections     Read more       
Selective Nerve Root Injections     Read more       
Stellate and T2 Ganglion Blocks     Read more       
Suprascapular Nerve Block     Read more       
Sphenopalatine Ganglion Block    Read more
Trigger Point Injections     Read more

Local anaesthetic injections with or without steroid can relieve pain and stiffness, giving you the opportunity to undertake a graded exercise program and get you back on track. People with headache, neck, shoulder, arm, back, leg, knee pain may benefit.

Radiofrequency treatments provide medium duration pain relief. They can help some people with headache, back, neck, shoulder, hip and knee pains.

PENS (peripheral electrical nerve stimulation) is a new day procedure that can be both a test and treatment procedure. It is helping people with back, knee, ankle and other localised pains.

Spinal cord stimulators, peripheral nerve stimulators and spinal drug pumps can provide sustained pain relief and functional improvement in complex pain conditions and a second chance at life.

We can cover most parts of the body with one of these treatments.

Autologous Blood Injections   Read more
Caudal Epidural Steroid Injection    Read more
Hyaluronic Acid Injection
Lumbar Transforaminal Epidural Steroid Injection     Read more
Cervical Facet Radiofrequency Neurotomy     Read more
Epidural Adhesiolysis / Neuroplasty     Read more
Epidural Steroid Injection     Read more
Epidural Blood Patch     Read more
Genicular Nerve Radiofrequency Neurotomy
Lumbar Facet Radiofrequency Neurotomy     Read more
Nucleoplasty (Percutaneous Disc Decompression)     Read more
PENS (Peripheral Electrical Nerve Stimulation)     Read more
Peripheral Nerve Stimulation     Read more
Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) Injections      Read more
Prolotherapy     Read more
Pulsed Radiofrequency Treatment     Read more
Occipital Nerve Stimulation     Read more
Scrambler Therapy     Read more
Spinal Cord Stimulation     Read more
Spinal (Intrathecal) Drug Pump     Read more
Transcutaneous Pulsed Radiofrequency Treatment    Read more
Vertebroplasty     Read more
Ultrasound Guided Injection for Shoulder Pain

Infusions are like injections except they’re given over a longer period of time. Depending on what kind of nerves are carrying the pain signals, an infusion of phentalomine may provide relief.

Diagnostic Analgesic Infusion   Read more
Ketamine Infusion   Read more
Lignocaine Infusion    Read more
Magnesium Infusion    Read more
Phentolamine Infusion    Read more

What is Scrambler Therapy?
Scrambler Therapy, also called “Calmare” (Italian for “to soothe or ease”) is a drug -free and non-invasive treatment for nerves and cancer related pain.

Scrambler Therapy is a form of “neuromodulation” that changes the way the nerves for nervous system behave, to desensitise the central nervous system. The brain is responsible for interpreting different sensory messages from the body and may interpret the sensory message resulting from an injury as dangerous and so create a sensation of pain. However, with neuropathic pain or nerve pain, the brain can create pain even if there is no injury or external pain generators.

Scrambler Therapy sends a message of “no danger” along the nerves to the brains, which reduces or eradicates the sensation of pain. Essentially this therapy is helping to retrain and rewire nerve transmission and perception to pain.

This is an established and common therapy in several European countries, the United States, Korea, and Japan.

FPMX offers scrambler therapy for patients in Melbourne from their Frankston clinic rooms on the Mornington Peninsula.

What should I expect at a Scrambler Therapy Session?
Scrambler Therapy is delivered in an outpatient clinic and does not require sedation. Your treating Pain Specialist will provide clinical oversight and supervision of your treatment, which will be delivered by treatment staff.

The first block of treatment is done over 2 weeks, with a total 10 consecutive treatment sessions with a weekend break between week 1 and week 2. Each Scrambler Therapy session lasts for 40 minutes plus the time required to position electrodes and adjust the stimulation.

At the start of each treatment session, a person’s site of pain is identified, and electrodes are placed on the skin, on either side of the painful area(s). Once the electrodes have been placed in the correct position, the stimulation intensity is then adjusted according to each person’s comfort level.

Patient will then develop a sensation of tingling, which has been described as a “pleasant humming” or like champagne bubbles on your skin. After a treatment session is completed, most people feel soothed and report that the pain has markedly reduced or disappeared. In the subsequent treatments your pain may remerge with less intensity and the duration of pain relief increases.

Once the initial 10 sessions are completed, pain relief can last between 3-12 months before top up or booster treatment is required.

When do I need Booster Treatment?
Booster sessions are required when nerve pain returns and stays present for 24-48 hours.

If this happens, please contact us and we will book you for up to 5 sessions. These sessions last the same length of time as the initial sessions.

Who is most likely to benefit from Scrambler Therapy?
People who have neuropathic or nerve pain.

Examples of Nerve Pain:

• Post chemotherapy induced painful peripheral neuropathy
  
• Post operative associated nerve pain
  
• Complex regional pain syndrome

Potential Benefits
As reported in the literature:

• Pain reduction between 50-100%
  
• Functional improvements including return to work
  
• Reductions in use of Medication
  
• Improved Sleep

Patients with the following conditions may not be suitable for Scrambler Therapy

• Patients with implanted pacemakers, aneurysm clips, vena cava clips, skull plates and brain injury sufferers.
  
• Patients who have had a recent myocardial infarction
  
• Patients being treated for epilepsy
  
• Pregnant and breastfeeding women
  
• Patients with unstable or untreated mental illness.

Implanted spinal and peripheral stimulators will need to be turned off for several weeks before therapy. This will be discussed with individual patients.

A full assessment is required to determine the suitability and potential risks for patients with the above conditions.

Is Scrambler therapy covered by Medicare, Health funds or Workcover?
Currently Medicare and Private Health funds do not cover this therapy. Workcover, Motor Accident Insurers and Department of Veteran’s affairs will consider funding this treatment.

History of Scrambler Therapy
Prof. Giuseppe Marineo invented and developed the clinical practice of Scrambler Therapy in the early 2000s. He named the Therapy after the military device that scrambled or changed signals and information so that they were no longer recognisable.

Current Research
There is strong evidence of efficacy with 9 randomised placebo-controlled trials and a published literature of over 60 papers describing the use of Scrambler Therapy.

Visit the Clinical Trials page for Scrambler Therapy

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Changing Your Thinking    Read more
10 Things That Help    Read more
Chronic physical illness, anxiety and depression    Read more
Drugs, alcohol and mental health    Go to link
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