Can a Spinal Cord Stimulator Help Me

If you live with chronic pain, you’re not alone. More than 20% of American adults live with chronic pain, and 8% have such severe pain that it interferes with their ability to complete their day-to-day tasks. Today, there are multiple approaches to pain management, including spinal cord stimulators. 

Sachida Manocha, MD, of Interventional Pain Center in Worthington and Newark, Ohio, is committed to helping you lead a pain-free life. If you have chronic pain — especially chronic back pain — and other treatments haven’t helped, a spinal cord stimulator may be just what you need. In this blog, Dr. Manocha explains what spinal cord stimulators are and the conditions they can treat.

How does a spinal cord stimulator work?

A spinal cord stimulator is a small implantable device that transmits a mild electric current along a wire to the specific nerves in your spinal cord that are sending out pain signals. The electric current disrupts the pain signals, thus relieving the discomfort.

Which conditions can a spinal cord stimulator improve?

A spinal cord stimulator may be able to relieve a number of types of chronic pain, but especially back pain. We might recommend a spinal cord stimulator to relieve certain conditions, such as:

• Post-surgical pain
• Arachnoiditis
• Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS)
• Sciatica
• Neuropathy
• Spinal cord injuries
• Multiple sclerosis
• Arthritis 

You should make an appointment to talk with Dr. Manocha about a spinal cord stimulator if you haven’t found relief with other treatments and the pain is affecting your life. For example, if pain makes you unable to take care of yourself or sleep well, it’s affecting your life.

Is a spinal cord stimulator right for me?

Spinal cord stimulation usually isn’t the first thing we consider. If you haven’t tried other options, we usually explore more conservative and less invasive therapies before moving to a spinal cord stimulator. 

Dr. Manocha might recommend a combination of medication and physical therapy or other less invasive pain management techniques, such as nerve blocks, rhizotomy, or radiofrequency ablation.

If Dr. Manocha believes a spinal cord stimulator may be able to help you, he’ll give you a two-week trial with one first. For the trial, Dr. Manocha will implant the wire into your spine in a minimally invasive procedure, but he’ll keep the small pulse generator outside of your body. You can wear the pulse generator in a pouch on your belt or around your neck. 

The trial phase will allow Dr. Manocha to see if the stimulator relieves your pain. If it does, he can implant the pulse generator for permanent relief. 

If you live with chronic pain that interferes with your life and doesn’t respond to other treatments, book an appointment online or over the phone with Interventional Pain Center to find out if a spinal cord stimulator might be right for you.