How Ohio Pain & Rehabilitation helps patients regain hope in Howland Township
For Dr. Chris Efthimiou, the most gratifying part of his job is hearing his patients’ hope has come back.
He’s part of the team treating patients with disc herniations, neuropathy, spinal stenosis, sciatica and knee conditions at the Howland Township clinic Ohio Pain & Rehabilitation.
“These people have lost faith,” Dr. Efthimiou said. “We’re seeing people that have significant low back pain radiating into legs and neuropathy from diabetes that have been just passed from one provider to another. The theme is common: they have the condition, however, it’s been not treated at the root cause, and they’re just getting worse.”
At Ohio Pain & Rehabilitation, providers follow patient-centered treatment plans, using innovative techniques and non-surgical procedures not commonly seen in the northeast Ohio area.
“We want to get to the root cause, so we’ll do an extensive neurological orthopedic evaluation, send patients in for MRIs,” Dr. Efthimiou said. “That tells us where the problem’s at and where the treatment plan is. Not everybody is the same; we have to find out where the problem is. We’ll put together a treatment plan that’s specific for you, your body type and your disc issue, if you have a disc issue.”
There are three innovative pieces of machinery being used at Ohio Pain & Rehabilitation, according to Dr. Efthimiou, including the StemWave, a non-invasive accoustic wave therapy machine
“That’s the differentiating factor with some of these machines: it’s not a one size fits all for people,” he said. “We can customize it the way we need to, to get the results that people want...It’s an acoustic wave that’s actually targeting if there’s scar tissue, if there’s inflammation, it will break it down, create blood flow to that area. Everybody has stem cells, and this will activate those stem cells to get into that healing process.”
Another one of the revolutionary machines is called non-surgical spinal decompression.
“It creates a a pump action, where it’s pumping oxygen, nutrients and blood flow back into that disc to shrink the size of herniations. We can target whatever we want, level-wise, in your neck or your lower back, to specifically create a plan for you.”
Ohio Pain & Rehabilitation also utilizes low-level laser treatment for chronic pain alleviation at a cellular level.
“These lights have had a profound effect on people, and there’s more and more research coming out. It’s actually helping the body heal to a certain extent. We have the ability with the lasers that we have in our office to differentiate if you come in with diabetic neuropathy, we can treat diabetic neuropathy. There’s a setting for that. There’s a setting for disc herniation, scar tissue and arthritis.”
Dr. Efthimiou said thanks to a partnership with the Disc Centers of America, he and his team are able to continue learning about how to best treat patients.
“Everything that we do is FDA cleared. All the machines are cleared by the FDA and the government,” Dr. Efthimiou said. “We get more training that help that holds us to standard. If I don’t pass these yearly tests and continuing education, we don’t get the certifications that we have. We’re constantly training with medical doctors, neurologists, that are teaching us new things, and they’re learning from us. We’re being held to a different standard. I take that knowledge and I apply it, and that’s how we help people.”
