Welcome! I’m Dr. Brian Lai, M.D., and I am here to diagnose your pain and help your body heal faster. I am an interventional pain specialist, and the founder of Specialty Pain Care, which I started to provide a more personalized experience for my patients. (Check out my intro post.) I’ve lived and practiced in Los Angeles since 2015 when I moved here to complete my Pain Medicine fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles.
I am originally from New York City and went to high school at Stuyvesant High School in lower Manhattan. I left the hustle and bustle of the big city to attend Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, but returned to an urban environment for medical school at the Drexel University College of Medicine. I am double Board-Certified by the American Board of Anesthesiology in Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine.
I see my role as an interventional pain specialist as a bridge between your primary care physician and more invasive treatments like surgery. I specialize in interventional pain techniques like epidural steroid injections, facet joint injections, joint injections, medial branch blocks, radiofrequency ablation and Ketamine infusion therapy. I use these various techniques not only to target and treat your pain but also to confirm the cause of your pain and ensure an accurate diagnosis.
I believe taking some time to listen to my patients is a very important first step in determining the cause of their pain. Afterwards, I use the Pain Unlayering Protocol (see my Pain Unlayering Protocol post) to better on hone in on the cause of their pain. This is a series of questions, conversations, and carefully selected tests that are personalized to each patient’s situation and that lead to an accurate and specific diagnosis as the cause of the pain. Then, I create an individualized and specific treatment plan that targets the true cause of the pain and eliminates any unnecessary interventions.
Request an appointment with me on my contact page and see how I can help get rid of your pain and get you on your way to living your life.