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Pain Management Doctors in St. Louis, MO

Padda Institute Center for Interventional Pain Management is a physician-owned interventional pain practice serving the greater St. Louis metropolitan area, with offices on Woodson Road in St. Louis and on Natural Bridge Road in Bridgeton. Care is led by Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda, MD, MBA, MHP.

Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda, MD, MBA, MHP — Interventional Pain Management Physician

Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda, MD, MBA, MHP, interventional pain management physician at the Padda Institute in St. Louis, Missouri

Dr. Padda has practiced interventional pain medicine in the St. Louis region for more than three decades. He completed his anesthesiology residency at Washington University–Barnes Hospital, spent seven years on the faculty of Saint Louis University School of Medicine, and holds diplomate status with five American specialty boards. A full professional profile, including publications and national presentations, is available separately.

Board certifications you can verify independently

Board certification in pain medicine is common among physicians advertising pain management. This particular combination is not.

Identifiers you can check rather than take our word for:

Training and background

The anesthesiology background is the clinically relevant one. Interventional pain medicine grew out of anesthesiology because the underlying skill — placing a needle precisely against a named anatomical target, under imaging, safely — is an anesthesiology skill.

What an interventional pain physician actually does

“Pain management doctor” covers several very different kinds of clinician, and the distinction matters when you are choosing one. A primary care physician manages pain mostly through medication. A physical therapist or chiropractor treats it through movement and manual therapy. A spine surgeon treats structural problems that require an operation.

An interventional pain physician occupies the space between those. The work is diagnostic first: identifying which specific structure — a facet joint, a nerve root, a sacroiliac joint, an entrapped peripheral nerve — is generating the pain, using image-guided injections that double as tests. Only then does treatment follow, targeted at the structure the diagnosis identified. It is a specialty built on the premise that “back pain” is a symptom, not a diagnosis.

Why the addiction and obesity board certifications matter here

These two look out of place on a pain practice until you consider what walks through the door. A meaningful share of chronic pain patients arrive already on long-term opioids, sometimes at doses that are no longer helping and cannot be stopped abruptly. Managing that safely — tapering down without putting someone into withdrawal, while interventional procedures take over the work the medication was doing — is addiction medicine, not pain medicine, and most interventional practices refer it out.

The metabolic side is less obvious and more interesting. Adipose tissue is not inert storage; it is endocrine tissue that releases inflammatory cytokines. Insulin resistance, visceral adiposity and chronic inflammation change how the nervous system processes pain signals, which is why some patients hurt more than their imaging suggests they should. Treating the joint while ignoring the metabolic environment it sits in is treating half the problem.

Conditions we treat

Each condition below links to a detailed explanation of how it is diagnosed and what treatment involves.

Interventional pain procedures we perform in St. Louis

Every procedure is performed on site, on an outpatient basis, under ultrasound or fluoroscopic guidance.

A complete index is on the interventional pain management guide.

How to choose a pain management doctor in St. Louis

Four questions separate practices more reliably than any ranking or advertisement:

Same-day and urgent pain appointments

Acute pain does not wait for the next available opening. The practice holds same-day and urgent appointments open at the Woodson Road office, and no referral is required to be seen. Call (314) 481-5000 or text (314) 886-5902. Full details are on the same-day and emergency visits page, which also lists the symptoms that belong in an emergency department rather than a pain clinic.

What patients say

Independently collected patient reviews aggregated through ReviewHub and Google total 1,551 five-star reviews across both offices. You can also watch patient video testimonials rather than read a curated selection of quotes.

Our St. Louis and Bridgeton offices

Monday–Friday, 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM. Phone (314) 481-5000 · Fax (314) 481-3037 · info@painmd.tv. Directions and maps are on the locations page.

Insurance and what your visit will cost

The practice accepts all commercial health insurance plans. Copays, deductibles and each carrier’s policies on specific treatments vary, so we verify your individual benefits before scheduling anything rather than after. Because procedures are performed in an outpatient office rather than a hospital outpatient department, the facility component of the cost is generally lower.

Frequently asked questions about pain management doctors in St. Louis

Who are the best pain management doctors in St. Louis?

No physician can honestly claim to be the best, and any practice that does should be read carefully. What you can compare objectively is verifiable: board certification and in which specialties, fellowship training, whether every procedure is performed under image guidance, whether a diagnostic step precedes a therapeutic one, and whether the NPI and state license check out in public registries. Those criteria narrow the field faster than any ranked list.

What is the best doctor to see for pain?

It depends on what is generating the pain. New pain after an injury usually starts with primary care or urgent care. Pain from a structural problem that clearly requires surgery belongs with a surgeon. Pain that has persisted beyond normal healing time, or that imaging does not explain, is where an interventional pain physician is most useful, because the diagnostic tools in this specialty are designed for exactly that gap.

Do pain management doctors give you pain meds?

At this practice, medication is a bridge and not a destination. We do not accept patients seeking opioids as the treatment. What we do is the opposite: for patients already on long-term opioids, we use interventional procedures to take over the work the medication was doing, so the dose can be tapered down safely without putting you into withdrawal. If you are looking for a prescriber, we are not the right practice. If you are looking for a way off, we are.

Do I need a referral to see a pain management doctor in St. Louis?

No referral is required to be seen at the Padda Institute. Some insurance plans require one for coverage, which is separate from whether we can schedule you, and we verify your individual benefits before your visit so there are no surprises.

What should I tell a pain management doctor at my first visit?

Be specific and be complete. Where the pain is, what it feels like, what makes it better or worse, what time of day it is worst, and what you have already tried, including what did not work. Bring your imaging on a disc or portal login rather than just the report, a current medication list, and the names of other clinicians treating you. Understating pain and overstating it both lead to the wrong diagnosis.

What is the golden rule of pain management?

Treat the generator, not the sensation. Pain is a signal, and the useful question is always which structure is producing it. That is why the first procedure is often diagnostic as much as therapeutic, and why a well-designed plan changes target when the evidence says the first target was wrong.

How soon can I be seen?

The practice holds same-day and urgent appointments open at the Woodson Road office for acute pain problems. Call (314) 481-5000 or text (314) 886-5902 and we will find a slot.

Request an appointment

If you have been managing chronic pain with medication alone, or you have had injections that were never image-guided and never told you anything diagnostic, a consultation is worth the visit. Request an appointment or call (314) 481-5000.