Padda Institute Center for Interventional Pain Management is a physician-owned pain management practice in St. Louis. Our main office is on Woodson, with a second on Natural Bridge Road, and we see patients from Missouri and Illinois. It is built for the two things you want: a doctor who takes your pain seriously and finds out what is really causing it.
We are an interventional practice. We start from three beliefs. Pain has a source. We can usually find it. And treating the source works better than managing the symptom forever.
The phrase means very different things at different clinics. At some it means a monthly pill check. At others it means a fixed series of shots on a schedule, whether they help or not.
Here it means finding the cause first. Before we write a plan, we pin down which part is making the pain. It could be a disc, a facet joint, a sacroiliac joint, a single nerve, or a pain system that has become oversensitive. An oversensitive system turns the volume up far beyond the injury. Those five causes lead to five different treatments. Telling them apart is the work.
That is why diagnostic blocks matter. If numbing one nerve takes the pain away every time, that nerve is the source. Then a longer-lasting treatment aimed at it makes sense. If it does not, we have learned something just as useful. And we have not locked you into a procedure that was never going to help.
Most patients come in with one of these, often after months or years of being told to wait it out:
A fuller list, with each procedure explained, is on our pain treatments page.
A scan is a starting point, not a verdict. Many people with no pain at all have disc changes on MRI. Plenty of people in severe pain have normal scans. What settles it is a hands-on exam. When it fits, we add image-guided testing.
We use ultrasound and fluoroscopic guidance for that reason. Ultrasound shows a joint, tendon or nerve moving in real time. So we can test a part while it is working, not judge it from a still picture taken while you lay flat.
The treatments themselves are described in detail on our interventional pain management page. It covers what each procedure does and when it is the right call.
Insulin resistance, poor sleep and constant inflammation all change how much an injury hurts and how well tissue heals. Ignore them, and some patients get better after a procedure and then slide back.
Dr. Padda is board certified in obesity medicine and in addiction medicine, on top of interventional pain. That is rare, and it is on purpose. It means we treat the metabolic drivers in the same practice. They do not get referred out and forgotten.
Bring any scans you have, a list of what you take now, and a short history of what you have tried. The first visit is a talk and an exam. If you clearly need a diagnostic procedure and want to go ahead, we can sometimes do it the same day.
We will not ask you to sign up for a long course of anything on the first visit. You should leave knowing what we think is causing the pain, what would prove it, and what results are realistic.
Severe pain does not wait three weeks for the next opening. And an emergency room is not set up to find the source of long-term pain. We keep room for same-day and emergency appointments. If you are in sudden, severe pain, call or text us and say so plainly.
This practice cuts opioid use down. It does not keep it going. Interventional treatment exists so pain can be controlled without raising doses. Dr. Padda is certified in addiction medicine, so we can manage a taper here, safely, with someone who knows how these drugs work. If you want a practice that will just keep refilling a prescription, we are not the right fit. It is fairer to say that plainly.
We take most major insurance plans, including Medicare. Coverage differs by plan and by procedure. So our staff will check your benefits before anything is booked. You will hear what your share should be before, not after.
Our main office is at 4477 Woodson Rd, Suite 100, St. Louis, MO 63134, right beside Lambert International Airport and a short drive from I-70 and I-170. A second office is at 12174 Natural Bridge Rd, St. Louis, MO 63044. Both are open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. You can reach both at (314) 481-5000.
Directions and maps for both are on the locations page. Care at both offices is led by our pain management physicians.
Our offices are on Woodson and Natural Bridge Road in St. Louis. We see patients from both sides of the river. We are licensed in Missouri and Illinois.
Missouri: St. Louis City, Bridgeton, Berkeley, Clayton, Ferguson, Florissant, St. Charles and Chesterfield.
Illinois: Dr. Padda is on staff at Anderson Hospital in Maryville. See pain management for Illinois patients, or the pages for Maryville, Edwardsville, Glen Carbon, Collinsville and Troy.
Looking for a physician specifically? See choosing a pain specialist in St. Louis.
This matters more in the city than anywhere else we serve. Most pages like this one leave it out.
MetroLink’s Red Line runs from downtown out to Lambert International Airport, right beside our Woodson office. If you are coming by train or bus, call before your visit. Our staff will walk you through the last stretch, so you are not left to figure it out at the station.
If a ride is what stands between you and a visit, say so when you book. It is a common problem, and we can solve it. Better to raise it on the phone than find out on the day.
Many city residents with long-term pain end up using the ER as their pain care. Not by choice, but because no one set up anything else. Here is what that costs.
An ER is great at ruling out an emergency. That has real value. If you have red-flag signs — loss of bladder or bowel control, a limb getting weaker, numbness in the saddle area, fever with back pain — the ER is exactly where you belong, right away.
What an ER is not built to do is find out why your back has hurt for eight months. CMS Hospital Compare data shows the typical ER stay in Missouri is about two and a half hours. At the region’s busiest hospitals it runs closer to four. Statewide, about 3% of patients leave before anyone sees them — and at the busiest St. Louis hospitals that reaches 7%, about triple the national rate.
For long-term pain, the ER visit usually goes like this: a long wait, an X-ray and a prescription on the way out. No one finds the source. Then the pain comes back, and the cycle repeats.
There is a second problem, and patients bring it up with us all the time.
In a 2022 U.S. Pain Foundation survey of 2,378 people living with chronic pain, 63% reported feeling stigmatized by their own healthcare providers. Research on rating pain points the same way. One study of fresh muscle and bone injuries found doctors’ pain ratings were off from patients’ own by 2.4 points on average, on an 11-point scale. They fully agreed in only 27% of cases.
Those numbers show a real pattern. It hits hardest the patients who are already least likely to be believed. The answer is not comforting words — it is hard testing. A diagnostic block does not depend on anyone believing your pain score. If numbing one nerve takes the pain away, that is a finding, and it goes in your chart.
Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda, MD, MBA, MHP provides medical oversight for Valor Villages — a St. Louis nonprofit that serves unhoused neighbors with medical care, addiction recovery and street outreach. He leads it with Pastor Amanda Reynolds.
That oversight runs through Valor Medica, the nonprofit’s medical arm. Its offices are at 4477 Woodson.
Mobile medical units take that care to people who cannot get to it. Valor Villages teams carry basic first aid into homeless camps and under bridges. This early care is meant to stop small problems before they become emergencies. The teams also bring mobile showers and laundry. It is outreach in the plain sense: the care goes to where people are, instead of waiting for them to show up.
In November 2025 Valor Villages opened a veterans housing facility in St. Louis, with separate units for men and women. It provides food, utilities, rides to medical visits, home health care where needed, and help getting benefits through Veterans Services of St. Louis. Valor Medica and Dr. Padda have also committed an initial $200,000 in seed funding toward a 24-bed home for unhoused children.
Two of his board certifications bear straight on these patients. Long-term pain, opioid dependence and untreated metabolic disease travel together. That is most true for people who have been out of steady care for years. Being certified in addiction medicine means a taper is managed properly, not used as a condition of treatment. Being certified in obesity medicine means the metabolic drivers get treated, not referred out and forgotten.
If you are a veteran and not sure we can see you, call and ask. You will get a straight answer.
Not in most cases. Many patients refer themselves. Some insurance plans need a referral to cover the visit. Check with your plan, and our staff can help you confirm it.
The detail is in Do You Need a Referral for Pain Management?
New patients are usually seen within a few days. Same-day visits are open for sudden, severe pain. Call (314) 481-5000 and tell the staff how bad the pain is.
Only if you clearly need it and you agree. The first visit is mainly about finding the cause. We do nothing without first talking through what it is for and what it should do.
See What Actually Happens at a First Interventional Pain Appointment.
That is a common reason people come here. It is worth digging into, not accepting. Injections fail for clear reasons. The wrong part was targeted. The diagnosis was never confirmed. Or the brain and spinal cord are driving the pain, not the part that was injected. Each of those has a different answer.
The detail is in Which Pain Specialist Should You See When Treatment Has Not Helped?
Yes. We are licensed in Missouri and Illinois. We see patients from both sides of the river.
See pain management for Illinois patients.
Mostly, you keep the same doctor. You see one physician, not whoever is rotating through. Decisions get made in the room, not by a committee. And your visit is not fighting a hospital’s surgery schedule.
Look for a doctor who finds the source of the pain before treating it. Ours is an interventional practice. We start from the view that pain has a source. It may be a disc, a facet joint, the sacroiliac joint, one nerve or an oversensitive pain system. Treating the source beats managing the symptom forever. Dr. Padda is also board certified in obesity medicine and addiction medicine.
Learn more: how to find the right pain management doctor.
This practice cuts opioid use down. It does not keep it going. Interventional treatment exists so pain can be controlled without raising doses. Dr. Padda is certified in addiction medicine, so a taper is managed here, safely, by someone who knows how these drugs work. If you want a practice that will just keep refilling a prescription, we are not the right fit. We say so plainly.
Learn more: opioid tapering, a bridge and not a destination.
Call or text us and say plainly that the pain is severe. We keep room for same-day and emergency visits, because an ER is not set up to find the source of long-term pain. Go to the ER right away for red-flag signs: loss of bladder or bowel control, a limb getting weaker, numbness in the saddle area, or fever with back pain.
Learn more: what the ER can and cannot do for severe pain.
Be direct about how bad the pain is and what it stops you from doing. Bring any scans you have, a list of what you take now, and a short history of what you have tried. You do not have to convince anyone. A diagnostic block does not depend on anyone believing your pain score. If numbing one nerve takes the pain away, that is a finding in your chart.
Learn more: what not to say to your pain management doctor.
If pain is limiting what you can do, the next step is finding out what is causing it. Call us or request an appointment.
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Same-day and emergency appointments are available.