Doctor opens Florence office to offer treatment of pain
By: Staff Reports
FLORENCE, S.C. — Pee Dee residents with pain problems have another option with the opening of Atlantic Coast Pain Specialists in Florence.
Located at 491 W Cheves St., Suite B, is the Florence branch of the Conway office of Dr. Blake Kline, who is no stranger to Florence. He is the former chief of anesthesiology at Carolinas Hospital System.
The purpose of the Florence office is to evaluate patients to see if they can be helped at the main office or if their pain can be managed locally by a nurse practitioner who will be stationed at the Florence office, Kline said.
A ribbon cutting was held at the Florence office on Wednesday, attended by ambassadors from the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce.
Kline first located to Florence in 2002 with the position at Carolinas Hospital System. After serving in that role for 10 years he practiced with Florence Neurosurgery and Spine for three years before he went out on his own with Atlantic Coast Pain Specialists.
He still has patients from his time in Florence who travel to Conway who will now be able to use the Florence location, he said.
Kline said his practice offers such pain treatments and interventional techniques as epidural steroid injections, nerve root injections, spinal cord stimulators, minimally invasive lumbar decompression, minimally invasive coracoplasty for broken backbones and radio frequency ablation to burn nerves — a treatment that can relieve pain for up to two years at a time.
Currently, surgical procedures take place in Conway, but Kline said he is working on being able to conduct them at Carolinas Hospital System in Florence.
With the nation working through an opioid crisis, Kline said, his practice offers solutions to either reduce, or eliminate, the need for the drug.
If it is required, though, Kline said, his office was qualified to manage patients’ pain with opioids.
A member of the American Society of Anesthesiology, Pain Society of the Carolinas, Kline earned his undergraduate degree from Coastal Carolina University and his medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina. He did his pain training at the Medical College of Georgia as well as in Augusta, Ga., he said.
The Florence office is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 8 a.m. to noon Friday. The office phone number is 843-407-4532.
