Dr Rajiv Chawla

About Dr Chawla

Dr Rajiv Chawla is a Pain Specialist. He completed his specialist training in the UK and achieved a dual anaesthetic fellowship from London and Dublin. He undertook comprehensive Pain training at the prestigious Walton Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery in Liverpool obtaining the Fellowship of the Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, London, UK (FFPMRCA) in 2009. He practiced as a full-time Consultant Pain Specialist at The Walton Centre, U.K, where he established the Pelvic Pain Clinic before his move to Australia in 2021. He is a compassionate pain specialist with a wide range of clinical expertise and specialist experience.

Dr Chawla has a proven ability to listen, assess, investigate your pain, and take appropriate decisions to formulate a comprehensive treatment plan of action. He is adynamic member of a multi-disciplinary team and thrives on making meaningful changes to his patients’ lives by reducing pain and pain-related disability and distress hence improving quality of life.

Pain conditions

Lumbar radicular pain and sciatica, neck, back pain, facet joint pain, spinal pain, shoulder pain, neuropathic pain, complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), facial pain, headaches, shoulder and arm pain, abdomino-pelvic pain, post-surgical neuropathic pain syndromes like post laminectomy pain, groin pain, thoracic pain, chronic post- surgical pain and diabetic neuropathic pain.

Special Interest

Interventional techniques to treat pain, nerve blocks, joint blocks, radiofrequency ablation, pulsed radiofrequency. Neuromodulation and spinal cord stimulation. Peripheral nerve stimulation. Sacral nerve stimulation. Ultrasound guided blocks. Myofascial blocks. Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections.

Qualifications

• MD (Physician)
• Postgraduate Diploma in Anaesthesiology (DA)
• FCARCSI, College of Anaesthetists RCSI, Dublin, Ireland
• FRCA, The Royal College of Anaesthetists, London U.K.
• Postgraduate Certificate in Pain Management, Cardiff, U.K.
• FFPMRCA, The Royal College of Anaesthetists, London U.K.
• FFPMANZCA, Australia and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists

Professional Memberships

• The British Pain Society (BPS)
• Interventional Pain Management Special Interest group (IPM SIG)
• The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP)
• IASP SIG on Pain of Urogenital Origin
• International Neuromodulation Society (INS)
• Neuromodulation Society of Australia and New Zealand (NSANZ)

Publications

• Restorative Neurostimulation for Chronic Mechanical Low Back Pain –Three Year Results from the United Kingdom, Post Market Clinical: Thomson S, Love-Jones S, Sharma M, Vajramani G, Williams A, Chawla R, Eldabe S Follow-up Registry. British Journal of Pain June’23, https://doi.org/10.1177/20494637231181498
• Development of an interdisciplinary specialist facial pain management programme; Tetlow J, Ainsley C, Twiddy H, Derbyshire G, Chawla R. British Journal of Pain. 2022 Apr;16(2):161-169. doi: 10.1177/20494637211027607. Epub 2021 Jul 19. PMID: 35419193; PMCID: PMC8998525.
• Restorative Neurostimulation for Chronic Mechanical Low Back Pain: Results from a Prospective Multicentre Longitudinal Cohort: Thomson S, Chawla R, Love-Jones S, Sharma M,Vajramani G, Williams A, Eldabe S Pain Ther (2021) 10:1451–1465, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40122-021-00307-3
• Experiences and Outcomes of Attending a Facial Pain Management Program: A Qualitative Study; Ainsley C, Bradshaw A, Murray C, Goss N, Harrison S, Chawla R. Journal Oral Facial Pain Headache. 2021 Summer;35(3):208-217. doi: 10.11607/ofph.2858. PMID: 34609379.
• Classical Predictors Do Not Predict Success with Sacral Nerve Stimulation for Chronic Pelvic Pain; A Retrospective Review in a Single Center. M Kashif, A Goebel, V Srbljak, R Chawla, M Draper, A Cox, M Sharma. Pain Medicine, Volume 20, Issue 5, May 2019, Pages 1059–1062.
• Female chronic pelvic pain: The journey to Diagnosis and beyond. Twiddy H, Bradshaw A, Chawla R, Johnson S, & Lane N. Pain Manag 2017.Epub: 11 Jan 2017.
• The development and delivery of a Female Chronic Pelvic Pain Management Programme: a specialised interdisciplinary approach. Twiddy H, Lane N, Chawla R, Johnson S, Bradshaw A, Aleem S, & Mawdsley L. (2015). British Journal of Pain. Nov; 9(4): 233-4.
• High-Frequency (10 kHz) or Conventional Spinal Cord Stimulation for Complex Neuropathic Pain Patients: M. Sharma, A. Cox, B. Costello, J. Blundell, A. Stockley, J. Dunwoodie, M. Draper, S. Aseri & Chawla R (2015). North American Neuromodulation Society: Abstracts.
• Complex Regional Pain Syndrome: Recent updates (2014) Continuing Education in Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Pain, 14 (2), pp. 79-84. Ganty P. & Chawla R.• Percutaneous balloon compression for trigeminal neuralgia: Does shape of the balloon matters. Rajiv Chawla, ML Sharma. Indian Journal of pain2009; 23: 252-55.

Research

• 2023, RocKet, Trial Endpoint Adjudicator , The effect of perioperative ketamine on the risk of development of chronic post-surgical pain in patients undergoing elective or expedited surgery and anaesthesia for major orthopaedic, abdominal or non cardiac thoracic surgery.
• Co- PI for Reactiv8 for Chronic Low back Pain PMCF study. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01985230
• Co- PI for Nevro CA2017 NSRBP study: A Multi-Centre, Prospective, Pragmatic, Randomized, Controlled Clinical Trial to Compare HF10 Therapy to Conventional Medical Management in the Treatment of Non-Surgical Refractory Back Pain. https://www.hra.nhs.uk/planning-and-improving-research/application- summaries/research-summaries/ca2017-nsrbp-study-rev-a/
• Co PI 2015-2018 Member of the steering group of The Endometriosis Priority Setting Partnership which is led by the University of Edinburgh and the project is independently overseen by the James Lind Alliance (JLA), a non-profit making initiative established in 2004. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) funds the infrastructure of the JLA to oversee the processes for Priority Setting Partnerships (PSPs). PSPs aim to help patients, people who support them, and clinicians to work together to agree which are the most important treatment uncertainties affecting their particular interest, in order to influence the prioritisation of future research in that area.
• Member of Scientific Subcommittee of the Pain Relief Foundation overlooking research applications and grants for small projects and for PhD (2010-2018).• PI for the multicentre NIHR portfolio study. “A Placebo-Controlled, Double-Blind Randomized Withdrawal Study to Evaluate the Safety and Efficacy of CNV1014802 in Patients with Trigeminal Neuralgia” (2011-12)
• Co-investigator for the trial "Low-dose intravenous immunoglobulin or 0.9% saline in the treatment of primary trigeminal neuralgia refractory to Carbamazepine – A randomised double blind parallel placebo-controlled multicentre trial in an outpatient setting (2008).