Detailed consultation including history, examination and review of all results to determine what the problem is.
Discussion of the appropriate steps to manage the problem including starting new medications, joint or soft tissue injection, diet and exercise.
Musculoskeletal ultrasound is used routinely as part of diagnosis, monitoring of disease activity and for guided injection.
Most rheumatic conditions are chronic and require regular review of the condition and often also require regular blood test monitoring due to the treatments used.
Corticosteroids injections (often called cortisone injections) are used for many different rheumatic indications.
Cortisone can be injected into inflamed joints, inflamed tendons, inflamed bursas, into the carpal tunnel or into muscle to provide symptom benefit.
Usually done for pain relief. Often done when other treatments have failed, and surgery is not an option. This includes occipital nerve blocks to treat neck pain and headaches due to degenerative changes in the cervical spine, suprascapular nerve blocks for end stage shoulder arthritis, and genicular nerve blocks to treat pain from end stage knee arthritis.
Hyaluronic acid, also known as viscosupplementation is essentially a lubricant that can be put into osteoarthritic joints to provide some symptom relief.
Examples of available products in New Zealand are: Durolane, Monovic, and Synvisc-One.
* Cost not covered by some medical insurance companies
Platelet rich plasma (PRP) is a product derived from your own blood. The blood is spun down in a centrifuge, and components of blood separated. The section with platelets and plasma is called PRP which can be injected into joints to treat osteoarthritis or into tendons and ligaments to promote recovery.
* Cost not covered by some medical insurance companies
We can provide infusions of biological medications to treat rheumatic conditions (infliximab, rituximab, tocilizumab). We can also provide iron and zoledronic acid infusions.
We are also be able to provide intravenous cyclophosphamide for the treatment of certain forms of vasculitis and other serious rheumatic conditions (as long as you are stable enough to be treated in the community).
The biological medications are very expensive. The delivery of infusions requires admission to our day stay facility and several hours of specialised nursing time. Not all insurance policies will fund the high cost of the medication and/or infusion.
If you are an international visitor and need for us to organise an infusion for your biologic medication whilst traveling through Auckland, please contact us.
Each medical insurer in New Zealand has a variety of different policies, offering significantly different levels of treatment cover. Please ensure you are familiar with your policy and exclusions including exclusions for pre-existing conditions so that the cost of private medical healthcare does not surprise you.
We are an Affiliated Provider to Southern Cross Health Insurance for consultations.
We are a nib first choice provider and health partner. We can do your pre approvals and make claims on your behalf.
All other patients are expected to pay for the consultation and any other relevant charges at the time of consultation and then claim the cost back from their insurer.