Northeast Ohio children’s hospitals have recently begun offering some new therapies for pain relief, with Akron Children’s Hospital increasingly providing some relatively uncommon treatments on an outpatient basis.
Akron Children’s now provides a procedure called sphenopalatine ganglion block for headache pain. It also uses ketamine infusions to treat chronic pain.
Some recent studies have found low-dose ketamine infusions have been successful at pediatric pain relief, and have potential to be used instead of opioids.
Anesthesiologist Dr. Cassandra Hoffmann said while ketamine has been safely used as an anesthetic for children for years, many hospitals haven’t yet applied it to treat conditions like complex regional pain syndrome.
“Chronic pain, in any sort of interventions or infusions that can be utilized, is kind of fallen by the wayside because there just are very few pediatric anesthesiologists that also specialize in chronic pain," Hoffmann said.
Ketamine can be misused, and recently received negative publicity in connection with the death of actor Matthew Perry. But Akron Children's said its physicians only administer the drug in a hospital setting. Physicians give small doses as infusions every few months.
Researchers say some fears about using the drug are unfounded, but that ketamine can lead to long-term cognitive impairment.
Amber Fox, a mother from Pennsylvania, traveled to Akron Children’s for the treatment, which she said helped with her daughter’s severe abdominal pain where other pain medications have had little or no effect.
“Sometimes it's a very sharp, stabbing pain. Sometimes it's a dull ache that'll last for hours on end. We can't really pinpoint one solution. All we know is if we give her ketamine, it takes [the pain] away," Fox said.
Akron Children’s, along with University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital, also offers cryoanalgesia treatments, which involve a freezing tool that blocks pain transmission and provides relief for chest wall and extremity pain in children.
