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While many patients come in expecting to have a bunch of medications thrown at them , his practice is more focused on a multi-modal approach to care , which includes treatments such as physical therapy , behavioral therapy , weight loss counseling and interventional therapy . Those things together can be used to treat the patient in a more holistic way .
At the same time , Dr . Sutton says that many patients don ’ t know how pain management has evolved and that they do get people coming in for the wrong reasons at times .
“ We do have patients sometimes that come in for nefarious reasons , and that is frustrating . But I think that is a very small part of who we see ,” he said , noting that the opioid epidemic has changed the course of some of their training . “ A lot of our training goes into helping parse through that and help identify those patients and diffuse those situations .”
Upon returning to Louisville , Dr . Sutton joined another practice where he met Dr . Alexander Sinofsky . In December 2018 , the two decided to branch off and open their own practice , Ohio Valley Pain Institute , with an office on Eastern Parkway in Louisville . Their main motivation in opening the practice was based on what they had observed around the city .
“ I wanted to take the time to really build a very comprehensive and patient-centered focus ,” he said . “ There are so many great physicians around town , but what I hear all the time from our patients is that they are very appreciative of the time that we spend with them explaining their diagnosis , what the treatment options are , and getting back to that holistic patient-centered approach that they had been missing .”
Within their practice , they are very proud of their ability to ease patients ’ anxieties and clarify their misconceptions surrounding pain management .
“ The perception is that we ’ re going to bring you in and give you a bunch of pain medicine and we ’ re going to get you hooked on these medications ,” he said . However , this could not be further from the truth . All doctors in Kentucky who prescribe opioids must use a statewide reporting program called KASPER to track which patients have been prescribed what opioids , when and by whom . Physicians then receive “ report cards ” that evaluate if they have been over or under the state average for prescriptions .
“ If you look at my and Dr . Sinofsky ’ s report cards , we actually prescribe at levels below the state average , even for primary care providers . I take a lot of pride in letting our patients know what we can do to help them that is not necessarily taking a pill every day . We do prescribe opioids , but we do it in a very effective way and only for patients who meet certain criteria .”
During the week , Dr . Sutton sees patients both in the office performing interventional procedures such as epidurals and joint injections , and also at ambulatory surgery centers doing implants .
“ I ’ m trained interventionally so I love hands on interventions such as kyphoplasty , for compression fractures of the spine ,” he said . “ It ’ s one of those things where the patient comes in in a wheelchair with a back brace on . By the time they ’ re in the recovery room , they ’ re pain free and feel completely better . It ’ s one of those things that you can do that really effects the patient ’ s quality of life .”
While he enjoys the procedural aspect , he can also appreciate the simplicity of just spending time talking with the patient . “ There ’ s literature out there that shows better outcomes in patients who understand or have education about their pain disorders and their treatment plan . If you can help the patients understand , that goes a long way in assisting their recovery .”
While the in-office procedures are his bread-and-butter , perhaps his favorite part is his work with surgical implants called neuromodulation . In certain pain conditions , pain is transmitted in such a way that the nerves become a big component of how the patient is sensing the pain .
“ Neuromodulation is taking those painful signals that are traveling in the nerves and spinal cord and altering them and changing them to non-painful signals , so that by the time they get to the brain , the patent is no longer experiencing them as painful signals .”
In 2016 , Dr . Sutton was one of the first pain management physicians in the Louisville area to be trained in and provide a new type of spinal cord stimulation ( SCS ) that stimulates a spinal structure called the dorsal root ganglion ( DRG ). The difference between traditional SCS and DRG stimulation is the target , he said . With SCS , they ’ re targeting the entire spinal cord , whereas with DRG , they are specifically targeting the dorsal root ganglion , which is essentially where all the sensory cell bodies are .
This treatment was brand new at the time and had only just come on the market . In his first case of DRG treatment , his patient was a 19-year-old woman who couldn ’ t walk and was essentially crawling around her home due to complex regional pain syndrome .
“ After the procedure , within a week she was walking down the aisle at her sister ’ s wedding ,” he said . “ It ’ s a profound and life-altering treatment for the right patient . It ’ s one of the more rewarding things that we get to do .”
In a similar story of a patient he saw just recently , a 24-year-old came to him after falling on her knee . In her case , the nerves were sending pain signals to the brain when there wasn ’ t really a pain-inducing injury present . “ She had debilitating leg pain and did not have a good quality of life . She couldn ’ t go to the store on her own and had to use crutches to walk . We implanted the neuromodulation device and now she ’ s essentially pain free with no medication .”
When he ’ s not in the office , you can find Dr . Sutton stepping back to relax and spending time with his wife , Karen , and their dog , Elwood . The trio love to be outside and travel , but above all enjoy unwinding at home . He met Karen while he was in residency in South Carolina , her home state . Karen has an education degree
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