By Sean Krofssik | skrofssik@courant.com | Hartford Courant
PUBLISHED: November 18, 2025 at 5:15 AM EST | UPDATED: November 18, 2025 at 10:30 AM EST
The goal is to avoid both surgery and use of any opioids.
So, Gaylord Specialty Healthcare recently unveiled a new option for those suffering with acute and chronic pain, offering treatments that take a non-opioid and non-surgical approach.
The Interventional Pain Center, which is located on the Gaylord Specialty Healthcare campus at 50 Gaylord Farm Road in Wallingford, offers targeted injections as well as nerve stimulators for patients.
Gaylord medical director Dr. Jerrold Kaplan said many patients these days are looking for alternatives to dealing with chronic pain.
“We have an opioid problem in the United States,” Kaplan said.
“People try not to use opioid medications whenever possible. In addition to the national epidemic, the medications also have severe side effects that can affect people’s ability to concentrate or cause severe constipation or interfere with their mental function and cause physiological issues,” he said. “We want to avoid those opioids and offer a minimally invasive pain procedures combined with appropriate therapy services is a great option of the population in Connecticut.”
The center offers a holistic, international pain program combined with therapy and non-opioid medications, according to Kaplan.
“If patients are looking for long-term opioid or medication management, we are not the right program for them. We are looking for something different here at Gaylord. We want to identify he appropriate source of the pain and provide relief for our patients,” he said.
Kaplan said the hospital has been treating pain management for muscular-neurological injuries for years using physiatrists, who are physical, medicine and rehabilitation specialists as well as physical and occupational therapists, but never had the injections for various types of spines and nerve pain.
“Everything has gone very well,” Kaplan said. “The patients have felt tremendous relief. We have patients who have come in with severe pain — for example, back nerve pain that is radiating down their leg and interfering with the ability to do their normal activities at home or their recreational or work activities — and come in and get an epidural injection and they get relief in many cases right away. Other times it takes a few days.”
The most common types of ailments the pain center has seen in the first month are back and neck pain. In addition to treating the most common ailments, the pain center also treats postsurgical pain, neuropathic pain, complex regional pain syndrome, myofascial pain syndrome, joint and musculoskeletal pain and pain related to spinal cord injuries, brain injuries and strokes.
“Many patients do not want to have back surgery, and Gaylord now has an alternative for going for back surgery,” Kaplan said. “For the correct patient, we can offer them alternatives and a full comprehensive program. In addition to seeing one of our interventional pain specialists for injections, we also have six other therapy locations set up throughout the state for physical therapy to address their pain with a variety of exercises and modalities to treat their pain.”
Kaplan said in addition to injections for disc-related pain that radiates, “we can do the epidural injections that can treat the arthritic pain in the back,” he said. “We can also do a variety of nerve blocks so patients who have pain in the extremities to block pain from different nerves.”
Patients will typically come in for an evaluation on the first visit and then the procedure will be done on the second visit.
“Because it’s a new program, we can generally see our patients quickly in a few days or a few weeks. Other pain programs across the state are scheduling people six months or more out,” Kaplan said. “Our program offers is for those in a lot of pain to come in and get treatment very quickly as opposed to having to wait six months or more elsewhere.”
The common treatment and procedures offered at the pain center include peripheral nerve blocks, rhizotomy, epidural steroid injections, facet joint injections, radiofrequency ablation, trigger point injections, neurotomy, Botox (for migraines) and medial branch blocks.
Cherry said in the first month, the pain center has not sent a single person for surgery.
“Back pain is extremely common and those who actually need surgery boils down to two or three percent,” Cherry said. “A large percentage of folks are going to get better and won’t have to come and see us again. The vast majority of the people that come here are going to do well with the program we put forward.”
Cherry said top question after patients get their shots is how long the relief will last.
“There is no cookie cutter answer. Some people will be fine for a couple of years before you see them again and other folks it may only last six months. When we treat someone, they usually say, ‘I feel like a million bucks. How long is this going to last?’ I always tell them we are going to find out together. Are you a six-year, six-month or six-week person,” Cherry said.
June Napolitano has been a nurse at Gaylord since 1998 and is currently one of the nurse managers. She’s also a patient of the Interventional Pain Center. Napolitano, 46, said she’s dealt with back pain from her physically demanding nursing job as well from her time as a volunteer EMT and firefighter in South Meriden. She is a lieutenant at the fire department that will be closing on Dec. 31 and plans to join the Wallingford Volunteer Fire Department next year.
Napolitano also slipped a disc in her back five years ago on a vacation overseas. She was a candidate for back surgery but decided to be treated by Macannuco-Winslow instead because she did not want to take pain medication.
Napolitano has been treated with injections to calm her nerve pain and also participated in physical therapy until she was feeling better. Napolitano said she calls the doctor if the pain gets to be too much to see if it is time for an injection.
Napolitano said she has had seven different injections over the last five years because the physical therapy alone doesn’t calm down the nerves.
“They have kept me walking and out of surgery,” Napolitano said. “I was in a fair amount of pain on a daily basis. Dr. Macannuco-Winslow took the time and made sure testing was done before the treatment. She sat down ran me through a lot of tests, and I was impressed by her bedside manner and not rushing the process.”
According to Kaplan, Napolitano is just one of the center’s success stories.
“We can take someone that has had pain for a few months or sometimes for a few years and dramatically improve their quality of life,” Kaplan said.