Paul J. Christo MD, MBA

Dr. Paul J. Christo is a leading pain specialist and author of Aches and Gains: A Comprehensive Guide to Overcoming Your Pain. He is the Chief and Associate Professor of the Division of Pain Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He served as Director of the Multidisciplinary Pain Fellowship Program for 8 years and the Blaustein Pain Treatment Center for 5 years at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

He is an invited lecturer both nationally and internationally, serves on 4 journal editorial boards, has published more than 100 articles and book chapters, co-edited 5 textbooks on pain, and actively teaches medical students, residents, and pain fellows. He’s a member of Men’s Health Magazine's medical advisory board, serving as their first pain specialist.

Dr. Christo treats a wide variety of patients with chronic pain, including low back and neck pain, disc herniation, spinal stenosis, headache, neuropathic pain (shingles pain, complex regional pain syndrome, diabetic peripheral neuropathy), cancer pain, musculoskeletal pain, persistent postoperative pain, craniofacial pain, and pelvic pain.

A subspecialty focus is neurogenic thoracic outlet syndrome (NTOS), a condition in which compression of nerves in the neck causes neck, shoulder, arm, and hand pain as well as tingling and numbness. It’s often caused by overuse injuries involving the arm in an overhead position. Anesthetic blocks and/or botulinum toxin (Botox) can help to alleviate the symptoms. Further, he has studied the beneficial effects of auricular acupressure, an exciting integrative therapy for relieving musculoskeletal pain such as low back pain.

Dr. Christo performs an array of pain-relieving procedures such as nerve blocks, joint injections, radiofrequency procedures, botulinum toxin injections, sympathetic blocks, vertebral augmentation (vertebroplasty, kyphoplasty), basivertebral nerve ablation (Intracept), minimally invasive lumbar decompression (MILD) for spinal stenosis, neuromodulation/neurostimulation procedures (spinal cord stimulation, peripheral nerve stimulation), and the selective use of drug infusion pumps.