How to Use Spinal Cord Stimulation for Pain Management

Spinal cord stimulation has been used successfully in the management of back pain. In this approach, a device is implanted under the skin that sends electricity to the spinal cord or certain nerves. These jolts of electricity may alleviate pain by preventing pain signals from completing their journey to the brain. Read on to learn how to use spinal cord stimulation for pain management.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Consider whether you would be a good candidate for spinal cord stimulation. A good candidate is someone unlikely to be helped by surgery, and for whom conservative treatments have failed. Furthermore, a good candidate for this procedure is someone who is free of drug addictions and has received a clean bill of health in a psychological evaluation.
2. Make sure spinal cord stimulation is right for you by undergoing a trial period before you commit. A temporary stimulator may be implanted, allowing you to evaluate how effective this approach is in the management of your pain. This trial period may last for as little as 24 hours or as long as several weeks.
3. Choose which system of spinal cord stimulation you would like to use. One popular choice is fully implanted, using a battery that will eventually have to be changed. In the other, a transmitter is carried outside the body and used to communicate information to an implanted receiver.
4. Get implanted with a permanent stimulator if the trial was a success. Both a wire lead and a receiver will be implanted under your skin, in two separate locations. In most cases, both the lead and the receiver are invisible to the human eye once they have been implanted.
5. Expect the incision site to be somewhat painful and swollen in the days following your surgery. Know that in most cases, this pain dissipates in a matter of days.
6. Be aware of your odds of success with this approach to pain management. In most cases, patients report that the use of spinal cord stimulation causes pain to diminish by 50 to 70 percent.

Tips & Warnings

• Expect to feel light tingling in the area being treated with spinal cord stimulation.
• Know the surgical risks associated with using spinal cord stimulation for pain management. These include bleeding, headache, infection, allergic reaction, paralysis and spinal fluid leakage.
• Be aware of the risks involved with using the spinal cord stimulator. There may be overstimulation or stimulation in the wrong location. The stimulator may shift or become damaged, necessitating surgery to remove it or place it in its proper position.