Living with chronic back pain can take a real toll on a person, from both a mental and a physical standpoint. Chronic pain can restrict a person's capability to engage in their everyday activities, and it can also interfere with their ability to maintain healthy relationships with family and friends. Finding relief from constant pain is a daunting task; however, spinal cord stimulation therapy is successful in 75 % of patients who received their spinal cord stimulator implant within two years of the onset of their pain. Spinal cord stimulation therapy is used by doctors to treat patients with a variety of conditions who have not found relief with other treatment methods.
What Chronic Pain Conditions Can Be Treated with Spinal Cord Stimulation?
Spinal cord stimulation therapy helps relieve chronic pain by neutralizing pain signals before they get to the brain. The treatment has been used to alleviate chronic pain caused by injuries and neurological, musculoskeletal, and endocrine-related conditions.
Some of these conditions include the following:
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS)
This condition can appear following a stroke or heart attack. It may also be diagnosed after an injury or surgery. Complex regional pain syndrome symptoms can include throbbing, sensitivity, swelling, change in skin color, and stiffness. After specific symptoms set in, such as muscle spasms, complex regional pain syndrome cannot be reversed.
Multiple Back Surgeries (Post-Laminectomy Syndrome)
Some patients who have had back surgeries to remove part of their vertebra to relieve nerve compression continue to feel pain or may feel additional symptoms. This condition is known as post-laminectomy syndrome and includes numbness, tingling, sharp pain, or weakness.
Degenerative Disc Disease
When injured due to drying out or other trauma, the vertebrae's discs can atrophy. Due to a low blood supply, discs in the spine have a low rate of repairing themselves, and the damage can lead to degenerative disc disease. Symptoms include pain in the arms and hands, lower back, thighs, and neck. People with degenerative disc disease often find sitting more difficult than standing and experience relief when lying down.
Arachnoiditis
Arachnoiditis can result from a spinal surgery complication, spinal tap, epidural injection, or other spinal trauma. People with this condition report feeling insects crawling all over their skin, tingling, numbness, or weakness in their legs. Some have also described the sensation as water rolling down their leg.
Epidural Fibrosis
When scar tissue builds up around a spinal nerve root after surgery, it is called epidural fibrosis. Those experiencing epidural fibrosis experience leg and back pain.
Find Relief from Chronic Pain at The Pain Center
If pain is interfering with your ability to engage in the activities you enjoy, you owe it to yourself to do something about it. Here at The Pain Center, our pain specialist has the skills and the experience to help relieve your pain and get you back to your active life. We offer several treatment options in our Boise and Caldwell, Idaho clinics. If you have had unsuccessful experiences with other pain management options, you may be an ideal candidate for spinal cord stimulation therapy.
To learn more about spinal cord stimulation therapy and other treatment modalities offered by our pain specialists, call one of our offices, or submit a contact form to schedule a consultation appointment.