DR. GURPREET SINGH PADDA, MD, MBA, MHP
The physician who examines your neck before he believes the scan.
Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda, MD, MBA, MHP, is the interventional pain physician who treats you at Neck Pain STL. He is board certified in anesthesiology, pain medicine, interventional pain management, addiction medicine and obesity medicine, and he has run the Center for Interventional Pain Management in St. Louis since 2001.
Who is Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda?
Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda, MD, MBA, MHP is an interventional pain physician, anesthesiologist and addiction medicine specialist in St. Louis. He trained first in trauma surgery, then in anesthesiology, and spent seven years teaching at Saint Louis University before building his own practice. He treats chronic pain as a metabolic disease, which is why a neck pain visit here can end with bloodwork as well as an exam.
He is also an operator with an MBA. He runs the practice as a system rather than a series of appointments, and he measures what it does. That habit is the reason this site publishes figures where most practices publish adjectives.
Why he does not stop at the MRI
Most people with neck pain have a scan that shows something. A bulging disc, an arthritic joint, a narrowed space. Many people with the same picture have no pain at all. Dr. Padda reads the image against the exam, not instead of it. The question is not what the scan shows. The question is which structure is actually generating the pain, and how to prove it before anything is treated.
He applies the same skepticism to the tissue itself. Insulin resistance and chronic metabolic inflammation stiffen collagen, starve the small blood vessels that feed a disc, and keep tissue in a breaking-down state. A neck is a metabolic organ as much as a mechanical one. A workup that stops at the picture is missing half of the cause.
Pain is a signal, not a diagnosis. The disc is where it hurts. It is not why it hurts.
Dr. Padda, on how this practice reads a chart
Where did Dr. Padda train?
- University of Missouri–Kansas City — BA in Biology, then MD
- General surgery training at Cook County Hospital, University of Illinois–Chicago
- Anesthesia residency at Illinois Masonic
- Anesthesia residency, Washington University–Barnes, with pediatric anesthesia at St. Louis Children’s; Chief Resident 1991–92
- MBA in International Business Studies, Saint Louis University
- Certified Physician Executive, American College of Physician Executives
What is Dr. Padda board certified in?
- Anesthesiology
- Pain Medicine
- Interventional Pain Management — Diplomate, American Board of Interventional Pain Physicians
- Addiction Medicine
- Obesity Medicine
- Metabolic Health Practitioner, Society of Metabolic Health Practitioners
- Fellow of Interventional Pain Physicians
Added competency certifications in Coding, Compliance and Practice Management (2009), Controlled Substance Management (2010), Nutrition Network Advisor (2023) and Regenerative Medicine in Interventional Pain Management (2024). Licensed in Missouri and Illinois, among other states. Individual NPI 1427035955.
Academic and leadership
- Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology (1992–99) and of Pediatrics (1993–99), Cardinal Glennon / Saint Louis University
- Founding Director of the Pediatric Acute Pain Management Service (1995–99)
- Saint Louis University Institutional Review Board — Deputy Director (1998–99)
- Faculty, KCU Freeman Health System psychiatry residency, pain and addiction (2024–present)
- Center for Interventional Pain Management — Chief Medical Officer since 2001
- Center for Regenerative Medicine — Medical Director since 2004
- President, Missouri Society of Interventional Pain Physicians (2002–10, 2023–present)
- Board Member and Examiner, American Board of Interventional Pain Physicians; ASIPP Board of Directors
On the national platform
Two ASIPP keynotes carry the argument this practice is built on: Treating Metainflammation and Interventional Pain (July 2020) and Metabolic Inflammation and the Hedonic Treadmill (July 2021). More recent talks include Revenue Enhancement with Risk Reduction through Outcome Measurement (ASIPP 2025) and Reimagining Metabolic Health (SMHP / LowCarbUSA, January 2025). His published research runs across Neuromodulation, Pain Medicine, Critical Care Medicine, Anesthesia & Analgesia and Pain Physician.
How does Dr. Padda approach opioids?
This is harm reduction, not a rule applied the moment someone walks in. Where pain is irreversible, zero is not the target. The target is the smallest exposure that works, with function held and harm kept off the table. Patients already on long-term therapy are helped to reduce it with interventional treatment that lowers the input the medication was covering, and they are kept out of withdrawal while that happens. Nobody is required to taper as a condition of being seen.
He has applied the same thinking to himself: after a hit-and-run in October 2026 he turned down opioids in the ER, and he describes whiplash pain relief without opioids in the first week for neck patients facing the same choice.
21% / 34%
of patients on long-term opioid therapy are fully weaned within 90 days and within one year respectively, under interventional treatment. Practice-reported figures from our own population, not trial outcomes, and individual results vary.
What that means for your appointment
You will be examined, not triaged. Your imaging will be read against your exam. A likely pain generator will be named out loud, and the plan to test it will be explained before anything is done. If we are not the right people for your neck, you will be told that on the day. More about how the practice works is on the About page.
BOARD CERTIFICATIONS, SOCIETIES AND AFFILIATIONS
As Seen In
Our releases ran on AP News, The National Law Review, FOX 2 St. Louis and 570+ other news sites across the United States and Canada.
- 12press releases
- 4,600+news placements
- 580+news outlets
- 110+TV station sites
- AP News
- The National Law Review
- FOX 2 St. Louis
- WGN-TV Chicago
- PIX11 New York
- KRON 4 San Francisco
- Detroit Free Press
- The Detroit News
- The Indianapolis Star
- The Tennessean
- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
- The Arizona Republic
- The Des Moines Register
- The Cincinnati Enquirer
Distributed by EIN Presswire for Nectar Media Group.
In the press
- Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda, MD: Trial Suggests PRP May Delay Knee Replacement for Patients Already on the Surgical List
EIN Presswire, October 12, 2026. His World Arthritis Day reading of a randomized knee trial, which treats osteoarthritis as partly metabolic and reports PRP as a bridge before surgery rather than a cure. - Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda, MD Puts the New Low-Carb Guideline to Work in Pain Care: Medicines Change Before Pain Does
EIN Presswire, October 7, 2026. Covers how the salt and water loss of the first low-carb days can add to the effects of anti-inflammatories and other pain medicines, and how he manages that under the new guideline.
