“Let’s Talk” With Dr. Jani

By Michael Vandenberg

“The era of paternalistic medicine where I’m the doctor, you’re the patient, and you’re going to do this because I say so is long gone,” Dr. Samir Jani said to me recently. “That’s just not the way I was trained.” When it comes to your health, shouldn’t you be in the driver’s seat? That’s certainly the guiding philosophy passed down by Garden State Medical Center’s founder, Dr. Dharam Mann, and it’s what makes Dr. Jani the perfect fit here. He wants to use his expertise and impart his knowledge to help you make an informed decision about your pain management.

And there’s no question that Dr. Jani has plenty of information to share because he checks all the boxes when it comes to education. At age 17 he was already accepted into a higher education program that included a guaranteed spot in medical school. He kept a high GPA while taking his courses at an accelerated rate that allowed him to finish a year early. Then he jumped right into residencies and a fellowship focusing on pain, anesthesiology, and internal medicine, culminating in his current specialty of Interventional Pain Management. He finished his fellowship and began practicing in 2016, making his way to GSMC the following year.

Dr. Jani pointed to a variety of reasons as to why he decided to make the switch to GSMC. For one thing, it fosters a seamless team environment. “The support and infrastructure of the practice is huge,” like the large network of staff on hand, to the electronic record keeping. With those tasks already being taken care of, Dr. Jani is able to put his entire focus on alleviating your pain.

After all, it’s crucial to maintain a sense of urgency when it comes to pain management because people are running out of options by the time they come to him.

Most of Dr. Jani’s patients are those who have seen countless doctors and had lots of tests but have never been able to find a diagnosis and fix the underlying cause.

“My ankle hurts,” Dr. Jani said as a general example. “I’ve seen ten podiatrists, I’ve had six ankle surgeries, and no one’s fixed it.” But even though it may never be fixed, “there are things we can do to at least help you get rid of the pain”.

Thankfully, Dr. Jani is not the type of doctor who just throws pills at the problem; he has a very strict interpretation of the related safety regulations. Not that he doesn’t use medications at all, but it’s only a tiny part of what he can do. “We’re highly interventional,” said Dr. Jani. He can target the pain with various injections, or hide the pain using electricity to target different stimulators in the nervous system. By implanting pain pumps, the medication is delivered directly to your spine, creating a much stronger effect. It all depends on the severity and longevity of the pain.

These steps may seem elaborate, but rest assured Dr. Jani is conservative in his relief suggestions. “I always tell patients that if I don’t have to do something, I don’t want to do it. So if I can make it go away with a two minute injection, that’s what I’m going to do,” he said. If that doesn’t work, then Dr. Jani will happily go over additional minimally invasive options with you. He might even just recommend physical therapy if that’s what the patient prefers.

After all, he has the tools and knowledge, but you also know your body and how you feel. When the two of you collaborate, you’ll see inspiring results. Dr. Jani had no problem giving me a couple examples of his “home runs”. For instance, one woman came in complaining of chronic pelvic pain. She’d had ten surgeries and was on a ton of medicine at this point, and yet her pain was making her life miserable. With just a few injections, her pain is effectively gone and she no longer has to take any pills. Now her kids see her and say, “You’re back to being yourself. You’re Mom again.” As an interventional pain management doctor, “I don’t know what was causing her pain, but I knew what she was feeling and that’s what I targeted,” said Dr. Jani.

Another patient came to him one time with fibromyalgia, with pain primarily in the back and neck. He first put her on non-opioid medication, which solved some of her problems but not all of them. Injections did the trick for her neck. For her lower back, he used a spinal cord stimulator, which is like a pacemaker for the spine. With that combination, she’s feeling fantastic and rarely even has to come in for a visit. “Previously she was going in to see another pain management doctor, having to go in every month to get Percocet that she didn’t even want to take and wasn’t even that helpful.” With her newfound happiness and relief, she was able to go on her first vacation in years!

You deserve to be pain-free too. Give Garden State Medical Center a call today at 1-888-376-2661 to schedule an appointment with Dr. Jani or any of their other superb pain management specialists. Feel free to visit gsmedicalcenter.org for a full listing of their convenient locations and to get more information on treatment.