Summit Spine & Joint Centers’ Warner Robins office brings pain management to Houston County, along with nearby Macon, Perry and Fort Valley, the practice’s southernmost Georgia location.
Dr. Loc Lam sees patients here. He is a board-eligible physician in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Comprehensive Pain Medicine with a focus on interventional pain management. He completed his Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation residency at Baylor College of Medicine, where he served as Academic Chief Resident, followed by fellowship training in Pain Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Lam treats a range of spine, joint, neuropathic and musculoskeletal pain conditions and has training in advanced procedures including radiofrequency ablation, kyphoplasty and spinal cord stimulation.
This is also one of a small number of Summit Spine locations with its own in-house Surgery Center, so patients needing a more advanced procedure aren’t sent to an outside facility for it.
Most patients traveling to this office are 40 and older, and many are coming from Macon, Perry or Fort Valley since it’s the closest Summit Spine location for that part of the state. Insurance and workers’ compensation coverage is confirmed before the visit, whether the plan is a standard injection or an on-site surgical procedure.
Conditions
Patients at the Warner Robins office come in with a range of neck, back and joint pain, including:
- Herniated Disc: disc tissue pressing outward against a spinal nerve, often with pain running down an arm or leg.
- Degenerative Disc Disease: the gradual loss of disc height and cushioning that comes with age.
- Lumbar Radiculopathy (Sciatica): nerve pain tracking from the lower back down into the leg or foot.
- Spinal Stenosis: a tightening spinal canal that crowds the nerves running through it.
- Facet Joint Pain: wear in the small joints that let the spine flex and rotate.
- Post-Laminectomy Syndrome (Failed Back Syndrome): pain that persists after a prior spine surgery.
- Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS): ongoing nerve pain that outlasts the injury that triggered it.
- Fibromyalgia: widespread pain and tenderness without a single clear source.
- Back Pain: pain that hasn’t let up despite rest, medication or physical therapy.
Treatments
The Warner Robins office offers all 19 standard non-surgical treatments, plus two procedures available on-site through the Surgery Center:
- Lumbar Epidural Steroid Injection: reduces swelling around an irritated nerve in the lower spine.
- Cervical Epidural Steroid Injection: an anti-inflammatory injection aimed at neck-level nerve irritation.
- Lumbar Transforaminal Epidural Steroid Injection: steroid guided directly to one affected nerve root.
- Facet Joint Injections: calms swelling in the spine’s small connecting joints.
- Medial Branch Block: confirms which facet joint is causing the pain.
- Sacroiliac Joint Steroid Injection: treats pain at the joint linking the spine and pelvis.
- Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA): heat used to quiet an overactive pain nerve.
- Lumbar Radiofrequency Neurotomy: a heat-based nerve treatment for the lower back, built to outlast standard RFA.
- Cervical Facet Radiofrequency Neurotomy: the same heat-based nerve treatment used on neck joints instead.
- Rhizotomy: heat applied to disable a painful joint’s nerve supply.
- Genicular Radiofrequency Ablation: for knee pain that hasn’t responded to other treatments.
- Celiac Plexus Block: for pain originating in the abdomen or digestive organs.
- Stellate Ganglion Block: an injection near the neck that treats nerve pain radiating into the face or arms.
- Lumbar Sympathetic Block: an injection series for CRPS-related leg pain.
- Discography: an imaging study that identifies which disc is the actual pain source.
- MILD: an outpatient procedure for spinal stenosis that doesn’t involve an implant.
- Vertiflex Superion: a small spacer implanted to keep the spinal canal open.
- Intrathecal Pump Implant: an implanted pump that releases pain medication in small, steady doses at the spine.
- Back Pain Treatment: a plan built from the options above, based on the diagnosis.
- Kyphoplasty (in-house Surgery Center): rebuilds a fractured vertebra’s height and stability.
- Spinal Cord Stimulation (in-house Surgery Center): an implanted device that blocks chronic pain signals before they register.
The last two are performed on-site, without a referral to an outside surgical facility. The Surgery Center also offers Basivertebral Nerve Ablation (BVNA), a nerve procedure that does not yet have its own page on the site.
Providers
One provider sees patients at the Warner Robins office:
- Loc Lam, MD, CMO: a board-eligible physician in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Comprehensive Pain Medicine who completed his residency at Baylor College of Medicine and fellowship training in Pain Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. His interventional pain expertise includes nerve blocks, radiofrequency ablation, kyphoplasty, spinal cord stimulation and other advanced pain-management procedures.
Full bios are below.