CONNECT WITH US
Tell us how long it has been, what your arms and hands are doing, and what has already been tried. That is enough for us to say whether an appointment here is worth your time.
How to reach us
Call (314) 886-5892
Text (314) 886-5902
Book online calendly.com/padda/medical
Messages are answered during clinic hours. This is not monitored for urgent problems — if something is getting rapidly worse, particularly weakness in a hand or a change in your walking or balance, that is a same-day problem and the reasons are on when a neck problem is urgent. In an emergency, call 911.
Where we are
12174 Natural Bridge Rd, Suite 302
St. Louis, MO 63044
Hours
Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Closed Saturday and Sunday.
Next to DePaul Hospital, just off the junction of 270 and 70, west of the airport. Parking is at the door and it is free. The building is the three-story one with the lit entrance canopy — Suite 302 is on the third floor.
What to bring
- Any imaging you already have — the disc or the images, not only the report. The report tells us what a radiologist saw; the images let us read them against the examination.
- A list of what has been tried, roughly when, and what happened. “Physical therapy, about six weeks last spring, no change” is genuinely useful.
- What your hands are doing, if anything. Numbness, dropping things, difficulty with buttons.
- Your medication list, including what you take for pain and how often you actually take it.
- If you were injured at work or in a collision, the date and your attorney’s details if there is one.
What the first appointment is
An examination and a conversation, not a procedure. Nothing is injected on a first visit. The purpose is to work out which structure is generating your pain and to tell you honestly whether there is something worth doing about it.
A meaningful proportion of people are told the answer is a loading program, or time, or a different specialty entirely. That is a legitimate outcome and you will not be charged for a procedure to reach it. More on what happens at the first visit.
If we are not the right people
We will say so. A neck that needs an operation, a shoulder that is genuinely the source, an inflammatory picture — those get worked up here first and named precisely, so that whoever sees you next is starting from a diagnosis rather than a symptom.
What happens after you get in touch
A short conversation first, usually the same day or the next working day. We want three things: how long it has been, what your arms and hands are doing, and what has already been tried. That is enough to tell whether an appointment here is likely to be worth your time, and occasionally enough to tell you it is not.
If it is, you are offered an assessment. If it is not — because the picture points to a surgeon, a rheumatologist, or a shoulder specialist — you are told that on the call rather than after a consultation fee.
Getting here, and parking
The building sits on Natural Bridge Rd next to DePaul Hospital, a few minutes from where 270 and 70 meet. Coming from St. Charles or St. Peters you are on 70 the whole way; from Creve Coeur, Maryland Heights or Chesterfield you are on 270. From Florissant or Hazelwood it is a short run down Lindbergh or 270.
Parking is free, at the door, and never a problem — which matters more than it sounds when turning your head to reverse is the thing you cannot do. Suite 302 is on the third floor and there is a lift.
If you are coming from Illinois
We treat patients from both sides of the river and Dr. Padda is licensed in Missouri and Illinois. Bring the same things. If your problem is an injury claim, tell us which state it happened in at the first appointment, because Illinois and Missouri handle that differently and it changes the paperwork rather than the treatment.
Hours, and what we are not
Messages are answered during clinic hours. This is a scheduled outpatient practice, not an urgent care and not an emergency service.
If something is getting rapidly worse — weakness in a hand that is progressing, a change in your walking or balance, clumsiness in both hands, or any bowel or bladder change — do not wait for a reply to a message. Those are set out on when a neck problem is urgent and they belong in an emergency department the same day. In an emergency, call 911.
What we will tell you that other clinics will not
Three things, reliably. That a normal scan does not mean nothing is wrong. That an abnormal one does not mean it has been explained. And that if the honest answer is a loading program, a different specialty, or time, that is what you will hear rather than a procedure.
An assessment that ends in a referral elsewhere is a legitimate outcome and it happens regularly. Nobody here is paid more for finding something to inject.
Bring your bloodwork if you have it
This will seem like an odd request for a neck problem. It is not. Insulin resistance and chronic metabolic inflammation stiffen collagen through glycation and hold tissue in a degradative rather than a rebuilding state — which changes the load at which a structure fails and how much it can repair between one working week and the next.
That is why two people at the same desk, doing the same job, do not get the same neck. Recent bloodwork — A1C, fasting insulin, a lipid panel — is genuinely useful information at a first appointment, and almost nobody thinks to bring it.
If you are not sure this is the right place
Call and describe it. Two minutes of conversation settles most of these, and being told “that is a shoulder, see somebody who does shoulders” is a better outcome than an appointment that reaches the same conclusion in six weeks.
We are the right place for neck pain that has outlasted the six weeks everybody promised, for arm and hand symptoms that need sorting into a root or an entrapment, for headache that starts at the base of the skull, and for necks that were operated on and did not settle. We are the wrong place for an acute injury needing imaging today and for anything with the red flags on the urgent page, which need same-day care rather than an appointment.
What to expect on the phone
You will be asked how long, what your hands are doing, what has been tried and what the imaging showed if there is any. Nobody will ask for your insurance before asking what is wrong with you.
What we do not do here
No same-day imaging, no emergency care, no surgery. We do not prescribe opioids on a first visit and we do not take over somebody else’s prescribing without a conversation with them first.
We also do not hand you on before working out what is wrong. If the answer turns out to be a shoulder, an inflammatory condition or an operation, you will leave with the diagnosis refined rather than with a suggestion to try somebody else. And we do not run open-ended series of procedures. Every plan made here has a stated endpoint and a stated way of knowing whether it worked.
If a collision or a work injury caused this, say so when you call — it changes the paperwork. How treatment gets paid for.