Blog Archive

Roughly 40% of the American population will deal with the same painful experience: sciatica.  This condition develops when something presses on your sciatic nerve, which runs from your lower back down each leg. If you’ve had radiating pain, weakness, or numbness in your lower back and one of your legs,...

In our modern age, we have a lot of tools we can use to promote health and healing. Take regenerative medicine as an example. Built on research about how our bodies heal themselves, this field has found new ways to tap into the body’s naturally occurring regenerative power. Platelet-rich plasma...

Back pain can be mysterious. While some cases have an obvious trigger — like a herniated disc or a strained muscle — sometimes the root cause of back pain can be difficult to pinpoint. And even if your doctor knows what’s causing the pain, treating it effectively is another matter...

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is already a painful condition. But the inflammation that this joint disease causes can lead to other issues, too. A large portion of people with RA develop a complication that affects their nerves, leading to tingling, numbness, and pain in the extremities.  This nerve problem is called...

If you have pain at the hip or shooting down one leg, it very well could be sciatica. This condition affects roughly 40% of people at some point during their lives.  Fortunately, because this condition is so common, a wide range of treatment options exist. More good news: Some of...

Your nerves play a huge role in your body’s ability to communicate what it’s feeling. If you touch something that’s overly hot, for example, your nerves communicate that to your brain, warning you of the danger. This allows you to pull your hand away and prevent yourself from getting burned....

From lifting a heavy box to simply twisting in an unusual way, there are plenty of ways you can strain your back muscles. Because your lower back has to support the weight of the upper half of your body, pulling a muscle in the back is pretty common. In most...

Migraine headaches can develop from any number of causes. Something as simple as skipping a meal or changes in the weather can be enough to set a migraine into motion. That means that effectively treating your persistent headaches starts with figuring out which factors drive your migraines. We can help....

For years, medical researchers have been excited about the promise of regenerative medicine. Essentially, this medical field unlocks new treatments that leverage our body’s own healing capability.  In recent years, regenerative medicine has yielded one particularly exciting solution to a variety of health woes. It’s called platelet-rich plasma (PRP), and...

Arthritis can take a lot of different forms, but at the end of the day, it means one thing: joint inflammation that causes you pain. Whether you’re dealing with arthritis in one of your body’s larger joints — like your hip — or the smaller joints in your hands, the discomfort can...

After a diabetes diagnosis, most people make some changes. You might adjust your diet and try to get more exercise, for example. But you can’t stop there.  Because diabetes can cause complications, you need to be on the lookout for other issues. For example, about half of everyone with diabetes...

Sciatica — a condition that develops when your sciatic nerve gets pinched — can make everyday life difficult. Moving becomes painful, and you might have other bothersome sensations, like pins and needles or weakness in the affected leg. You don’t want to live this way. Fortunately, here at Hawai’i Pain...

A migraine can strike seemingly out of nowhere. But oftentimes, if you start paying attention to what precedes that splitting headache, you’ll find that one or several triggers were in play.  Once you figure out what triggers your migraines, you can prevent future ones. So if you frequently suffer from...

Fibromyalgia can feel mysterious. We still don’t know the precise cause of this condition, and symptoms often vary from person to person. Ultimately, as you try to learn more about fibromyalgia, you might end up with just as many questions as answers.  That’s where we come in. As a pain management specialist...

From morning sickness to fatigue, pregnancy can bring a lot of unwelcome side effects. People often joke about some of them — like the food cravings or growing feet — but other impacts probably don’t feel very funny when you’re living with them. Take joint pain as an example.  You probably...

You might feel like you’ve tried just about everything for your back pain. If it hasn’t responded to lifestyle changes, medication, and injection-based treatment, you fortunately still have choices to explore.  Specifically, with spinal cord stimulation, Dr. Jonathan D. Carlson can implant a small device that interrupts the pain signals coming from your...

Since your hip is the biggest joint in your body, it’s especially bothersome when it has pain. Hip discomfort might have you giving up things you used to enjoy or avoiding even simple activities like getting up to get a glass of water.  Fortunately, at Hawai’i Pain and Spine on the Windward...

Pelvic pain can turn your life upside down. You want — and deserve — relief.  To a large extent, finding that relief means finding out what’s causing your pelvic pain. That way, your doctor can tailor a care plan to address the root cause of your discomfort rather than merely masking...

Fibromyalgia causes widespread pain and a range of other unwelcome symptoms, like brain fog and sleep troubles. Medical experts think this comes from oversensitivity in the nerves that send pain signals to your brain, but they still haven’t uncovered the reason for that hypersensitivity. That doesn’t mean fibromyalgia is a...

Migraines can be tricky to figure out. They can come from a variety of causes — from stress and poor sleep to certain medications — and often bring a wide range of symptoms. As a result, if you have another symptom you commonly feel with your migraine, like neck pain,...

Not only is your knee the biggest joint in your body, but it’s also one of the most complex. All of the components — your bones, tendons, ligaments, and cartilage — have to work together to provide you with pain-free mobility.  As with any system, things can go wrong. Maybe...

You don’t want to fracture any bone in your body, but it’s especially problematic when the fracture develops in one of the bones in your spine. Suddenly, doing even the most mundane activities can feel excruciating.  You don’t even need to experience an acute back injury to find yourself in...

Your nerves serve as your body’s communication network. When they’re working properly, they keep you safe. You quickly recoil when touching an overly hot surface, for example, because your nerves rapidly alert your brain to the danger. When you have neuropathy, though, this communication network breaks down. A peripheral neuropathy...

Your spine relies on a canal to keep all of the nerves there from getting pinched. Unfortunately, anything from osteoarthritis to thickened ligaments can cause that canal to narrow. When it does, you get a whole host of unwelcome symptoms — and a spinal stenosis diagnosis.  In fact, if you’ve...

If you live with pain that radiates from your back to other parts of your body, a targeted treatment could bring you fast relief. With an epidural injection, you get a way to treat inflammation and ease pain. That said, the nervousness that can come with getting this injection might...

You’ve probably marveled at your body’s healing capability. A giant scrape on your knee becomes a barely noticeable scar over the years. A sprained ankle that couldn’t bear any weight a week okay feels fine now. A headache vanishes after a good night’s sleep. Clearly, your body knows what it’s...

When most people think about their joints, their minds go to the highly visible ones like the knees or the joints in the hands. While your hip joints might not get as much attention, they play a huge role. In fact, they matter not just for your mobility, but for...

One of the most sweeping changes in the last couple of years shaped not how we work, but where we work. Even today, as workplaces reopen, nearly 60% of Americans who say they can do their job from home are skipping the office. What’s more, the majority report that they’re working from home by choice.  If...

Our bodies have a pretty remarkable innate healing power. You’ve probably marveled as a cut has healed or been relieved as your body repairs a strained muscle. You’re not alone in that. Medical researchers increasingly look to our own healing capabilities to drive better outcomes. You can see evidence of...

It’s all too common for people who don’t get migraines to think of them as just another headache. But if you live with migraines, you know that they’re so much more. The frequent, intense pain disrupts your days and gets in the way of work, relationships, and hobbies. Fortunately, it...

Your back pain could stem from any number of issues. Fortunately, while there are seemingly countless causes of back pain, you also have access to a wide range of treatment options.  The trick is to find the right solution for the cause of your specific back pain and the symptoms...

Sciatica causes radiating pain along your buttocks or down one leg because of pressure on your sciatic nerve. That pain traveling down your leg can interfere with your quality of life, causing discomfort when you move, pins and needles, or numbness.  Fortunately, getting relief from your symptoms doesn’t always have...

Neuropathy often feels mysterious. You’re suddenly dealing with persistent pins and needles or unexplained numbness. Something burns or feels extra sensitive and you don’t know why. If these symptoms sound familiar, you might be living with neuropathy. You develop neuropathy when something adversely affects your nerves. Anything from pressure from...

If you have an injury that isn’t healing the way it should or chronic pain that you just can’t seem to kick, regenerative medicine can help. Treatments within this specialty focus on harnessing your body’s natural healing power to get the outcome you want: less pain faster.  Medical professionals today...

Since back pain is so common — affecting roughly 80% of people at some point during their lives — it’s no surprise that doctors and medical researchers have closely studied its causes. While some back pain stems from an obvious and treatable cause, like disc herniation, other back pain can...

Virtually everyone will deal with a headache at some point in their lives. But a migraine is something entirely different. While some people use the terms headache and migraine interchangeably, they’re actually very different.  Fortunately, if you deal with head pain so severe that it grinds your day to a...

When you experience a sensation like tingling or burning, you want to be able to trace it back to a cause. You might have “pins and needles” because your leg fell asleep after sitting in one position for too long, for example. But if you have sensations that you can’t...

Lasting joint pain gets in the way. Whether you deal with shoulder pain that makes it hard to put groceries away or knee pain that makes walking uncomfortable, you’ve probably already tried changing your habits to decrease your pain. But all too often, untreated joint pain will only limit you...

Medical experts have long marveled at our bodies’ innate healing power. And while many researchers have looked for ways to replicate that with exterior processes or synthetic ingredients, science has shown that one of the best ways to heal an injury already lies within us. By using platelet-rich plasma (PRP),...

Countless things can cause back pain, but you also have nearly countless options for treating it. Somewhere between basic over-the-counter pain medication and invasive procedures lies nerve-blocking options like an epidural. Dr. Jonathan D. Carlson offers epidurals to our patients at Hawai’i Pain and Spine, on the Windward side of...

Living with pain is always frustrating, but that’s especially true when you don’t know what’s causing your discomfort. Widespread, unexplained discomfort might feel mysterious and disheartening, but there could be a medical explanation for it. It could be fibromyalgia. Here at Hawai’i Pain and Spine, on the Windward side of...

If you get migraines, you know that the pain you feel shifts throughout the attack. You may have even noticed certain warning signs that your next migraine attack is imminent. Better understanding those signs can help you manage your migraines — and so can proper treatment. At Hawai’i Pain and...

Since roughly one in four Americans will live with neuropathy at some point during their lives, it’s no surprise that researchers and medical practitioners have extensively sought effective treatments. And fortunately, they’ve found success with many of them. Even so, the problem is that because neuropathy can have so many...

Coping with chronic back pain can completely rearrange your life and its priorities. You can be caught between the needs and burdens of pain management. Medication-based therapies work best over the short term, and you face drug resistance and addiction when trying to manage long-lasting pain, particularly when other, conservative...