Since you're on our website, you are likely to have an issue with some kind of pain and are looking for effective treatment. This may be your first search for a pain specialist, you may have received treatment before and not have experienced effective results, or you may be seeking a different kind of medical care for any number of reasons. Whatever your reason, if you are experiencing pain, we are here to help you. We have a different approach designed to provide the most effective, honest treatment while minimizing the ordinary risks involved in the treatment of pain.
Our website is intended to give you information about who we are, how we differ, and what you can expect when you come to visit us for treatment. Since we are a bit different, you'll find one difference to be fairly obvious very quickly: We want and need you to be a part of your treatment, and that means that we will be open and honest. This includes who we are, how we approach pain medicine in all of its complexities, and once we have an understanding of your unique situation, the entire road map of your treatment plan — every step of the way. For the majority of our patients, it's a different approach, but one that most find a refreshing change — supportive, caring, and solely focused on them.
Welcome to our new website!
If you've never visited us before, my name is Dr. Nino Dobrovic, and I am a physician specializing in the management and treatment of chronic pain. For new and prospective patients, our new website is intended to be a useful tool to find out more about us to help you make an informed decision in finding a physician to help you. If you're already a patient, this website is planned to be a an adjunct source of information we've reviewed and feel can offer you tools that will expand your knowledge and ability to deal increasingly well with your particular condition.
We now know that chronic pain is the hallmark of many conditions. We also know that after a few months of unrelenting pain, pain has lost it's purpose of alerting the individual to bodily harm. The end result of "chronic pain" is multiple, and cataloguing what it is doing to you is the start of a good treatment plan. Although it is the end result of various biological processes, persistent pain loses it's original purpose of alerting the individual to active, ongoing damage to the body and instead becomes a "disease" unto itself. As a result of research conducted over the last several decades, we have come to understand that our bodies are rather poor at "turning off" the pain "switch" and in many conditions, instead of experiencing pain only with tissue injury, we come to have constant pain that — in reality — serves no purpose, but causes suffering.
My passion is to help patients in chronic pain. We do this by first performing an old fashioned medical history interview and physical examination. Many of my patients find it refreshing that I spend a minimum of an hour evaluating with them during the initial evaluation and frequently comment that this is a unique experience for them. I believe this is important to determine where exactly your pain is coming from. It is not uncommon that what you have been told before is, in fact, not the cause of your problem. Patient's view pain as monolithic and a single, solitary entity; however, my job is to tease it apart — to figure out how to rationally separate it into components that contemporary clinical tools may be used to address it. Ultimately, my goal is for you to be able to move forward in your life, since, so often, pain often stops life. Chronic pain patients suffer from high levels of depression, sleep impairment, and functional loss. Many are unable to perform at their work. It is my job to figure out where your pain is coming from and whether and how it can be resolved or mitigated. If we cannot completely rid you of your pain, then our goal is to ameliorate it so that you have an improved quality of life by getting you restful sleep, focusing on what you are able to do rather than unable to do, and resuming physical activities in a stepwise manner that will leave you feeling better. We do this through therapy, medications, interventional procedures, diagnostics, and clinical referrals to relevant specialists. I believe, for example, that exercise is medicine. I believe that medications help, but no amount of any drug will get you out of bed or off the couch and back into life. You know that life is now hard with chronic pain, and I hope you will consider allowing me to help you take the steps necessary to see if — together — we can get you back to a better life.
I look forward to meeting you soon,
Nino Dobrovic, M.D.
