By Celeste McLaughlin
At New Tampa Interventional Pain & Sports Medicine in the Seven Oaks Professional Park (located off of S.R. 56 in Wesley Chapel), José De La Torre, MD, treats patients who are experiencing back and/or neck pain, arthritis, headaches or other conditions that cause them chronic pain.
Dr. De La Torre is Board-certified by the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and received his MD degree in 1999 from Ponce School of Medicine in Ponce, Puerto Rico. He also completed a residency in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX, in 2003.
At that time, Dr. De La Torre decided he wanted to continue practicing medicine in the U.S., but wanted to be as geographically close to his native Puerto Rico as possible, and that’s when he landed a job in New Tampa.
“I’m from San Juan, which is a big city, so I felt more at home in Tampa than in the smaller towns in Florida,” Dr. De La Torre says. “I love sports and I always wanted to be in a city with sports teams.”
Dr. De La Torre and his wife Anna are raising their five children in the area, and now his parents and grandparents also have moved to New Tampa from Puerto Rico.
For the past 10 years, Dr. De La Torre has worked as a physiatrist (another name for a doctor of physical medicine & rehabilitation) for health care practices in New Tampa. He’d always considered opening his own independent office and, in January of this year, he says the perfect opportunity came along.
Dr. De La Torre had been working for Gulf to Bay Integrative Pain Medicine and Rehabilitation (which has three offices around Tampa Bay) when its parent company made a business decision to close its pain practice in Wesley Chapel, where he already was working. So, when he was offered the opportunity to keep his patients and the location, but operate independently, he jumped at the chance.
“As an independent doctor, I can focus more on my patient’s needs,” Dr. De La Torre says, explaining that he has added Licensed Massage Therapy and some surgical procedures to his practice, including epidural injections, spinal blocks and joint injections. “It’s much more convenient for my patients to have certain surgical procedures done in my office, and also less expensive.”
He adds, “I take a conservative, multi-disciplinary approach to try to help patients avoid surgery. We do this through physical therapy, licensed massage, medicine, modalities such as electric stimulation or heat and ice, and any combination of treatments that will provide pain relief for our patients.”
He credits his staff with making patients feel welcome in the office. Anna is a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist who currently serves as the practice’s administrator. Two medical assistants, Karen and Priscel, both worked at the previous practice with Dr. De La Torre and have many years of experience in pain medicine. In fact, Priscel is a physician in the Dominican Republic, so while she is not licensed to practice as a physician in the U.S., she has extensive medical knowledge that serves New Tampa Interventional Pain & Sports Medicine’s patients well. The practice’s staff also includes a receptionist and a Licensed Massage Therapist.
One patient who is grateful for the pain relief she has experienced from Dr. De La Torre is Victoria Burch, a Registered Nurse (RN) who works for a home health care agency. Victoria says she has suffered from chronic, severe headaches, causing her to be hospitalized several times a year. Just a few months ago, another health professional recommended she try Dr. De La Torre’s office. “Pain management doctors usually just prescribe medicine, but that’s not what I was looking for,” Victoria explains. “He gave me other options, including massages and even Botox injections” (which are used exclusively to provide pain relief for migraine headaches, not for cosmetic purposes, at Dr. De La Torre’s office).
Victoria explains that as an RN, she tends to be critical of other health care professionals, but she’s had a great experience with Dr. De La Torre, and he’s found a way to keep her headaches away. “He’s very open to discussing options, in a way that most doctors just don’t take the time to do anymore,” she says. “He has taught me a lot.”
Another patient who found Dr. De La Torre through the recommendation of a friend is a patient who asked to only be identified as Elizabeth. Elizabeth says she was frustrated that her family doctor was not helping to relieve the excruciating pain she was experiencing in her hip. A friend who had been in a car accident and received treatment from Dr. De La Torre recommended that Elizabeth also visit him.
“He listened to me and had great empathy, and knew I needed help fast,” she says. “He diagnosed me and began treatment immediately.”
She adds that Dr. De La Torre prescribed medical massages and physical therapy, and gave her two steroid injections in her spine. Thanks to this treatment, she says that her pain is essentially gone. “I’m even running again,” she says. “That’s something I enjoy, but couldn’t do before because it exacerbated the pain so much.”
Dr. De La Torre notes that he especially wants to help patients such as Elizabeth, whose pain keeps them from being able to exercise. This type of sports medicine is much more typical than what you might think of when you hear the term. Sports medicine is not just treating elite athletes when they become injured, but can refer to treating any kind of pain that either is a result of or which prevents someone from being active. “If knee, shoulder, or back pain is inhibiting your ability go to the gym or go for a run, I can treat you so you can live the active lifestyle you want,” he says.
Treating Prescription Pain Med Abuse, Too!
Knowing that prescription pain medicine abuse is a real problem in the U.S., Dr. De La Torre has started a pain medication dependency treatment program as part of his practice. With assistance from a psychiatrist, he helps patients who already have become addicted — or fear becoming addicted — to pain medication.
“I thought most patients I would treat in this area would be pain patients from other doctors,” he says. “I’ve been so surprised that most are actually teenagers and young adults who began abusing prescription drugs recreationally. But, no matter how a patient came to be dependent upon opiates, we offer interventional procedures.”
He says that not many doctors are doing both pain management and addiction recovery, but he feels it’s important to recognize the problem and help patients who are looking for that help.
In addition to treating pain, providing the opioid dependency program, and offering massage therapy in his office, Dr. De La Torre also can help his patients lose weight.
“Patients often have unwanted side effects with appetite suppressants, but there are other medications available,” he says. “And, losing weight is often an integral step to becoming pain-free.”
New Tampa Interventional Pain & Sports Medicine is located at 2014 Ashley Oaks Cir. in the Seven Oaks Professional Park, off of S.R. 56 in Wesley Chapel. The office is open Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. To make an appointment or find out more, call 999-3030 or visit NewTampaPain.net.
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