Summit Spine & Joint Centers’ Lithia Springs office, on Crestmark Drive, is the closest option for patients in Austell, Clarkdale, Mableton, Douglasville and Adamsville. Most patients here are 40 and older, living with back, neck or joint pain that hasn’t resolved with rest, medication or physical therapy.
Dr. Gerald Chai leads the office alongside Dr. Hubert Pare. Dr. Chai is double board certified in physical medicine and rehabilitation and pain medicine, trained through an interventional spine fellowship at Non-Surgical Orthopaedics in Marietta, and spent more than seven years as the only pain management specialist at a Savannah, GA orthopedic group before joining Summit Spine, performing more than 15,000 interventional pain procedures over his career.
Dr. Pare, originally from Burkina Faso, holds a board certification in pain management and procedural medicine. He paired a biochemistry degree from Oglethorpe University in Atlanta with a medical degree from the University of Medicine and Health Sciences in St. Kitts, then completed a fellowship in sports medicine and non-surgical orthopedics at Memorial Health in Savannah.
With two providers now on staff, patients traveling in from Douglasville, Mableton or Austell have a choice of physician for a first visit rather than a single option, while still seeing a small, familiar team rather than rotating through a large roster.
A first visit includes a review of prior imaging and a physical exam, and given the office’s combined case volume, a plan can often move straight from diagnosis to a specific injection or nerve treatment without a separate consult visit in between.
Conditions
Patients at our Lithia Springs pain clinic come in with a wide range of neck, back and joint conditions, including:
- Back Pain: pain that hasn’t improved with rest, medication or physical therapy.
- Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS): nerve pain that lingers well past the injury that started it.
- Degenerative Disc Disease: the natural thinning of spinal discs that builds up with age.
- Facet Joint Pain: irritation in the small joints that let the spine bend and twist.
- Fibromyalgia: widespread, hard to pin down pain paired with heightened sensitivity.
- Herniated Disc: disc material pressing on a nearby spinal nerve, often confirmed by MRI.
- Lumbar Radiculopathy (Sciatica): pinched-nerve pain that travels from the lower back down one leg.
- Post-Laminectomy Syndrome (Failed Back Syndrome): pain that continues after an earlier spine surgery.
- Spinal Stenosis: narrowing of the spinal canal that puts pressure on the nerves inside it.
Treatments
The Lithia Springs office provides the same 19 non-surgical treatments used across Summit Spine, each chosen based on the individual diagnosis:
- Back Pain Treatment: a plan built from the options below, matched to the diagnosis.
- Celiac Plexus Block: a nerve block for chronic pain in the stomach, pancreas or other abdominal organs.
- Cervical Epidural Steroid Injection: the same steroid approach used for neck and arm pain.
- Cervical Facet Radiofrequency Neurotomy: the same heat-based technique applied to neck joints.
- Discography: an imaging test that pinpoints which disc is causing the pain.
- Facet Joint Injections: reduce swelling in the spine’s small connecting joints.
- Genicular Radiofrequency Ablation: targets the nerves behind chronic knee pain.
- Intrathecal Pump Implant: delivers low-dose pain medication directly to the spine.
- Lumbar Epidural Steroid Injection: a steroid injection that calms an inflamed lower-back nerve.
- Lumbar Radiofrequency Neurotomy: an RFA variation for the lower back, built to last months longer than a standard injection.
- Lumbar Sympathetic Block: an injection series that eases CRPS-related leg pain.
- Lumbar Transforaminal Epidural Steroid Injection: steroid guided precisely to one affected nerve root.
- Medial Branch Block: pinpoints which facet joint is behind the pain before treating it.
- MILD: a minimally invasive outpatient option for spinal stenosis that doesn’t require an implant.
- Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA): uses heat to interrupt a nerve’s pain signal.
- Rhizotomy: uses controlled heat to quiet a painful joint’s nerve supply.
- Sacroiliac Joint Steroid Injection: treats pain at the joint connecting the spine and pelvis.
- Stellate Ganglion Block: treats nerve pain in the head, neck or arms.
- Vertiflex Superion: a small implant that holds a narrowed spinal canal open.
Providers
Two providers see patients at the Lithia Springs office:
- Dr. Gerald Chai: double board certified in physical medicine and rehabilitation and pain medicine, with more than 15,000 interventional pain procedures performed over a career that included seven years as the only pain specialist at a Savannah, GA orthopedic practice.
- Dr. Hubert Pare: board certified in pain management and procedural medicine, with a biochemistry degree from Oglethorpe University and a sports medicine and non-surgical orthopedics fellowship at Memorial Health in Savannah, GA.
Full bios are linked above.