Every year in the United States, between 1.3 million and 1.5 million spine surgeries are performed, and each patient is hoping for the same outcome — relief from chronic back or neck pain.
Unfortunately, many spine surgeries fail, which is one of the reasons spinal cord stimulation is gaining traction as a preferable alternative. Approximately 50,000 spinal cord stimulators are implanted each year in the US.
Not only is spinal cord stimulation reversible, you can take it for a test drive first, which certainly can’t be said of surgery.
Here at Pain Medicine Consultants, our team of board-certified specialists is pleased to include spinal cord stimulation as part of our extensive suite of pain management services.
In this month’s blog post, we want to dive into the trial period — what occurs and when we consider spinal cord stimulation to be a success.
Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is a form of neuromodulation in which we implant electrodes that emit mild electrical impulses to interfere with the overactive pain signaling you’ve been dealing with. These electrodes are powered by a small battery that we implant just under your skin.
There are several aspects of this approach to managing your chronic pain that make this pain management technique popular, such as:
When we say trial period, the main difference is that we don’t implant the battery, but have you wear an external battery pack instead.
To get the spinal cord stimulation trial going, you come to one of our offices, where we install temporary leads using a special insertion device. Then we outfit you with the external battery pack.
During this visit, we show you how to operate the stimulator and how to control the level of stimulation (within preset ranges, of course).
We also counsel you on what you should and should not do during your SCS trial period. For example, we might caution you against strenuous movements that could dislodge the electrodes. We also review bathing, etc., and how to keep the external unit dry.
Lastly, we go over how you should take notes during this test drive, which we review at the end of the trial period.
Most SCS trial periods last 7-10 days, during which you can put the stimulator to the test. When it comes to gauging success, that’s really something only you can decide.
To help guide you, our rule of thumb is that if your pain is reduced by 50% or more, we consider that a success. But we don’t want to pin you to this number. If you experience a decline in your pain and an improvement in your quality of life, it’s up to you to decide whether to continue.
Should you want to move forward and have us implant a more permanent and user-friendly spinal cord stimulator, then we can schedule a quick implantation visit, which we perform on an outpatient basis.
If you have more questions about spinal cord stimulation or the trial period, please don’t hesitate to contact us at one of our offices in Pleasant Hill, Corte Madera, or Pleasanton, California.
