• Welcome
  Our Philosophy
  
• Neurologists
• Neurology and Pain Management
• Essays
• Theological Essays
• Poems
• Information for Out-of-Town Patients
• Video: Welcome to NeuropraXis

Welcome

Neurology & Pain Management is a unique practice offering healing and treatment by working in active partnership with our patients. We prefer to work with our patients rather than impose our medical will in a patronizing manner the way physicians used to practice. While we are dedicated to providing state-of-the-art diagnosis and treatment of neurological conditions, we also encourage patients to call upon their innate and perhaps untapped inner resources for recovery, to make best use of their own wisdom that can greatly impact their healing processes for the good.

We treat each individual who comes through our doors with care and respect, always sensitive to the human dimension of their pain and suffering. Our refreshing approach to medical practice arises from Dr. Ungar’s perspectives on medical treatment and disease paradigms. We avoid engaging with damaging labels or any other practices that may tend to engender fear or anxiety in our patients. Instead, we pursue healing by utilizing a blend of the best medical diagnosis and treatment along with active patient collaboration.

Our goal is to work compassionately with each individual. We use all our skills to develop the most comprehensive view of each person as a complete human being whose disease states and human suffering are unique and which cannot, which must not be treated as if they were otherwise.

Our Philosophy

We believe in the power of healing and that each of us has this power within.

Our role is to first diagnose your problem using all state-of-the-art tools available.

Then we provide to you all of the information to assist you in making an intelligent decision regarding your strategy.

We attempt treatment using all current available medicines and technologies.

Knowing our limitations, we are open to alternative therapies as long as they do not harm.

Finally we are sensitive to the fact that pain is associated with another feeling called suffering.

Suffering is the anguish associated with pain that cannot be treated with medication or injections but which nonetheless needs healing as well.

Neurologists

A neurologist is a physician who has been trained to treat disorders of the nervous system, which include diseases of the brain, spinal cord, nerves, and muscles. These are conditions that a neurologist commonly treats:

• Chronic pain
• Dementias (Alzheimer's disease)
• Discogenic pain
• Epilepsy (seizures)
• Fibromyalgia
• Headaches
• Multiple sclerosis
• Parkinson's disease
• Post-polio syndrome (PPS)
• Reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD)
• Strokes
• Various forms of pain

For more information about our physicians, please see Our Physicians page.

Neurology and Pain Management
by Julian Ungar, MD, PhD

Perspectives in Intractable Pain Management
An analysis of current diverging viewpoints

Introduction

Across America, two opposing attitudes or paradigms of thinking currently exist in regards to medical management of intractable pain. Empirical, long-range medical research has brought light into the darkness of the Old Paradigm. However, despite the studies that support the New Paradigm, millions of people in our country continue to suffer needlessly because safe, medical treatment is denied to them by regulatory agencies and healthcare professionals. The Old Paradigm ignores three decades of international studies that support pain treatment in cancer pain patients and severe intractable pain patients.

The Old Paradigm believes:

• It is not safe or prudent to prescribe pain medication on a continual basis.
• Opioid pain medicine is addictive and can cause long-term damage to internal organs.
• Pain patients should be tough and learn to live with pain.
• When pain patients continue to ask for increased pain medication, they are exhibiting addictive behavior.
• Physicians who prescribe pain medicine are no different than illicit drug dealers and should be treated as such.

Pain management needs a multidisciplinary approach

• Less than 1% of chronic pain patients become addicted or experience long-term physiological damage as a result of prolonged, controlled opioid pain treatment.
• When pain patients receive adequate pain treatment that relieves their chronic pain and associated depression, patients can lead relatively normal, productive lives. Their friends and families frequently give positive reports of an increased "quality of life," previously thought impossible.

What is intractable pain?

Intractable pain is a pain state in which the cause of the pain cannot be removed or otherwise treated and which, in the generally accepted course of medical practice, no relief or cure of the cause of the pain is possible, or none has been found after reasonable efforts including, but not limited to, evaluation by the attending physicians and surgeon and one or more physicians and surgeons specializing in the treatment of the area, system, or organ of the body perceived as the source of pain.

What are the ailments often associated with intractable pain?

The following is a list of ailments that may result in intractable pain:

• Neck and lower back pain
• Cancer pain
• Carpal tunnel syndrome
• Tension and migraine headaches
• Arthritis RSD
• Neuropathy and diabetes
• Foot pain

Thirty-four million Americans suffer from intractable pain every year. What's even sadder is that there are medications available that can relieve their pain, but certain barriers created by societal stigmas and taboos continue to block pain patients from receiving the relief they need.

How we can help

Neurology and Pain management is a multidisciplinary center providing expert specialist consultation including:

Neurology
Electrodiagnostics (EEG, EMG)
Pain specialists
Physical medicine and rehabilitation
Physical therapy

Information for Out-of-Town Patients

1. Referral service.
On receiving your medical file we will review your case and advise as to an appropriate referral in your area. We have performed due diligence on most major cities in the US and UK. We are able to afford you our experience in many years of referral in neurology and pain management.

2. Review of your records.
We are able to review your imaging studies, MRI's, CT scans and medical file in order to make an appropriate comment on your care to date and make recommendations for your future care.

3. Out-of-Town Service.
We offer a two-four day overnight stay service in association with local motels and hotels (for which we receive a discount for our patients). We offer a pick up and return service to the airport, which is about an hour from all major airports in the Chicago land Metropolis. During this stay we will examine you, perform appropriate neuro-diagnostic studies and imaging studies, where necessary, and pain management services in our affiliate surgi-center.

4. Financial hardship for out-of-town patients.
Please do call our office regarding financial hardship so that we can better serve you with payment plans and other financial strategies that will alleviate the burden of your healthcare costs somewhat.

Bookmark this page as your resource for neurology information. All other pages of our website can be accessed from the left navigation bar. We hope you find this information helpful in your health care decisions. Please contact us with questions or for an appointment.