Scott Webb (Host): Today we're going to learn what integrative pain management means and how men specifically are benefiting from this innovative approach to treatment from Dr. Kalyan Gaddam. He's the Director of the Integrative Oncology and Rehabilitation Center at CBCC. 

This is Hello Healthy from Dignity Health. I'm Scott Webb.

Doctor, it's nice to have you here today. When I knew what we were going to discuss today, integrative pain management for men's health; I was really intrigued because I'm a male and I care about my health, and I don't know what integrative pain management means. So let's start there. What is integrative pain management?

Kalyan Gaddam, ND: So integrative pain management is where we combine different treatment approaches, which are non-pharmacological, and we try to assess it as a whole human, whole person, systemic approach where we try to find out what the root cause of the illness is.

Say for example, why do you have this pain? Or how do we treat this pain as a whole person? That is what we try to understand or we try to figure out the cause of the pain and according to the, what causes the pain, then we cater our treatments towards how do we treat that pain more effectively based upon the cause of the pain.

Host: Yeah. And as you say, non-pharmacological. And I'm sure that that rings well in a lot of people's ears. So then let's talk about the different treatments that you offer.

Kalyan Gaddam, ND: So we offer depending upon the cause of the disease, we offer multiple treatments. First we will talk about the perineural injections, which is the most common treatment I use in my clinic, which we use 5% dextrose. That's pretty much it actually. If we just use 5% dextrose and we do subq injections. After that, based upon how the patient responds, if it is not a nerve injury, then we go to what might be a tendon injury, and we try to use prolotherapy or PRP based upon if it is a tendon or a ligament injury kind of a thing. We also do this like osteoarthritis and degenerative disc diseases. We do generally use lot of platelet rich plasma or prolotherapy, which again is 25% dextrose.

Host: You, uh, hit upon something there, the osteoarthritis. I'm 56. Definitely suffer from that. So, good to know that you have lots of tools in your tool belt, so to speak. Wondering, is integrative pain management different from naturopathic medicine?

Kalyan Gaddam, ND: It's the same thing. It is just that the naturopathic and integrative pain management approaches, we try to find where the root cause is. The difference I would say with the general medical system would be we do not do any drugs. We do not use any steroids. We do not do any other opioid, any medications.

In fact, my clinic is based upon trying to get people off of their opiates or off of their pain medications and use as little as possible. There are patients, which ultimately they might need some medications, but my focus is trying to get them off of medications and try to be their best selves.

Scott Webb: And it makes me wonder like, who can be treated using naturopathic or integrative pain medicine and maybe how can oncology patients benefit from naturopathic treatment?

Kalyan Gaddam, ND: My specific focus in oncology we focus a lot on neuropathy cases. Like all the patients who suffer from neuropathy, we try to use the perineural injections, what I told you about 5% dextrose. Any candidate who is having neuropathic issue can come and see me.

And also it is safe during the treatments. There is no side effects or drug interactions. It's just a simple procedure. Those patients can come, or any patient who have a match to bones where we do treat try to help them to decrease the amount of pain medications they need. They will need significant pain management options, but we can also take the edge off whenever the medications are not working as much, we can take the edge off. So anybody who has pain during their cancer treatment can come see me like sometimes they have lymphedema issues, which may be also an issue which I deal with kind of a thing. So they can come and see me too if they're having the lymphedema as well.

Host: Yeah, it sounds like you help a lot of patients. So I want to ask you, what positive outcomes do you see in your patients who utilize integrative pain management and how does it positively affect men's health?

Kalyan Gaddam, ND: In terms of the men's health the way I would just simply put is the quality of life, how they feel about themselves. That's what my focus would be for most of the men's health. How do I get them to feel the best they can feel, irrespective of their age.

Host: Yeah. Maybe we talk a little bit about some of the positive outcomes, right? You've had a lot of success stories, but just in general is that the main thing is that people, their quality of life, men's quality of life just improves because of how you're able to help them?

Kalyan Gaddam, ND: In terms of mens health, many of the patients I see are most oftentimes in terms low testosterone, low T or erectile dysfunction. These are the patients which we see with a very good success rate. You just feel good if your testosterone is in an optimal range. You tend to see things differently. There is not much depression, there is not much lagging. There is much more happiness just increase in quality of life with the increased testosterone.

Host: I can understand that for sure. And just want to maybe focus in a little bit what integrative treatment options are available for men's health at CBCC?

Kalyan Gaddam, ND: Again most oftentimes we treat men with chronic prostate issues, prostatitis, elevated PSA for many different reasons. We also treat men with low testosterone. We also treat erectile dysfunction, hypertension. Just in general, any kind of a pain, inguinal pain or scrotal pain. We, we try to deal with all those things here at CBCC.

Host: Sure. We covered a lot here, Doctor, in a short period of time, but if folks want to learn more, if patients want to learn more where would you recommend they go?

Kalyan Gaddam, ND: They can go to our CBCC website, www.cbccusa.com. They can search for my name or they can go to the Integrative Rehabilitation and Pain Management Center.

Host: Yeah, that's perfect. Well, like I said, we covered a lot in a short period of time. Given me some stuff to think about for sure in terms of my own health and I'm sure listeners as well. So thank you so much.

Kalyan Gaddam, ND: Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you for having me.

Host: I'm Scott Webb, and if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out the full podcast library for additional topics of interest. This is Hello Healthy, a Dignity Health podcast. Thanks for listening.