For pain management in Bridgeton, Padda Institute’s Natural Bridge Road office is at 12174 Natural Bridge Rd, St. Louis, MO 63044. This is a real office, not a service area. If you live in Bridgeton, you are not being sent across the county for care.
Yes. The Bridgeton office on Natural Bridge Road accepts Missouri Medicaid (MO HealthNet). Book your first visit here with the Bridgeton calendar, or call (314) 481-5000.
The office sits on Natural Bridge Road, west of I-270 and a few minutes from the St. Charles Rock Road corridor. Parking is on site and at ground level. That matters more than it sounds when walking is the problem you are coming in about.
Hours: Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Phone: (314) 481-5000
Fax: (314) 481-3037
Both offices share one phone number and one set of records. It does not matter which you call. You will not be asked to repeat your history because you were seen at the other one.
This is the practical question, so here is the honest answer.
At either office: your first visit, physical exam, review of scans you bring, follow-up visits, medicine review, and treatment planning. Most of your care happens at whichever office is closer to you.
At Woodson specifically: anything that needs the fluoroscopy suite. Fluoroscopy is live X-ray. The C-arm, the shielded room and the procedure table are all at Woodson. That covers epidural steroid injections, radiofrequency ablation, kyphoplasty, spinal cord stimulation trials and most spine work.
Woodson is about a fifteen-minute drive east along Natural Bridge Road. It is a straight run, with no highway needed. You will be told which office your visit is at when it is booked, not when you arrive.
The nerve you are trying to reach is a few millimeters across. It sits next to parts you must not hit. If you inject by feel alone, a good share of shots miss the target. That is one of the most common reasons a patient tells us injections “did not work” for them.
Under fluoroscopy, the needle spot is confirmed before anything is injected. Contrast dye shows where the medicine really spreads. Under ultrasound a tendon, joint or nerve can be watched moving in real time. That lets us test it under load, not judge it from a still picture taken while you were lying flat.
The same range as our main office: sciatica and radiating leg pain, neck and low back pain from the facet joints or sacroiliac joint, diabetic neuropathy, knee and hip pain, migraine and cervicogenic headache, injuries after a motor vehicle accident, and pain that persisted after spine surgery. The full list is on our pain treatments page.
From I-270, exit at Natural Bridge Road and head west. From St. Charles Rock Road, turn south. From the Woodson and airport area, Natural Bridge Road runs directly west to the door. Maps for both offices are on the locations page.
Severe pain is not a reason to wait three weeks. An emergency room is not built to work out why your back has hurt for eight months. We hold capacity for same-day and emergency appointments. Call and say how bad it is. That changes how you are scheduled.
Visits, exams, follow-up and planning, yes. Procedures that need live X-ray are done at Woodson, fifteen minutes east, because that is where the gear is. Most patients make that trip once or twice, not routinely.
Not from us. Some insurance plans need one to cover the visit. That is a different question. Our staff will check your plan before you come in.
Which plans require one is set out in Do You Need a Referral for Pain Management?
On site, at ground level, no garage and no stairs from the lot.
The office, hours and directions are on our Locations page.
Plan on about an hour. It is a talk and an exam. You should leave knowing what we think is causing the pain and what would confirm it.
Only if it is clearly needed, you want it, and you are at the office that can do it. The first visit is mostly about finding the cause.
Whether an injection happens at the first visit is covered in What Actually Happens at a First Interventional Pain Appointment.
Medicine review is part of care at either office, but it is not the center of it. This is an interventional practice. The aim is to find what is causing the pain and treat it directly. We do that with image-guided procedures such as epidural steroid injections and radiofrequency ablation at the Woodson office. Your current medicines are reviewed at the first visit and built into the plan.
Most major insurance is accepted, including Medicare. Plans differ on whether they need a referral before they cover the visit. Our staff checks your plan before you come in, not after. You do not need a referral from us to be seen. Call (314) 481-5000 to start.
Call us or request a time. Most major insurance, including Medicare, is accepted.
Prefer not to fill in a form?
Same-day and emergency appointments are available.