Spinal Cord Stimulation Specialist

What is spinal cord stimulation?

Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) treats patients with severe chronic pain that doesn’t respond to other treatments.

A spinal cord stimulator is a small unit implanted under your skin. It uses electrical impulses to stop pain signals from the nerves in your spine from reaching your brain.

You control the implant with a hand-held controller. This allows you to increase the strength and frequency of the electrical impulses when your pain gets worse.

What can spinal cord stimulation treat?

SCS can treat various back and neck problems. It acts directly on the nerve endings, making it particularly effective for patients with neuropathy (nerve-related pain).

These problems are often caused by nerve compression in the spine. Nerves under pressure from thickened ligaments, damaged or herniated discs, arthritic changes, and other causes of spinal stenosis (narrowing of the spinal canal) are often responsible.

Most patients find that the noninvasive treatment programs Southeast Spine Care & Pain Management designs for them effectively relieve back and neck pain. However, if these don’t work, and other treatments like epidural injections and radiofrequency ablation don’t help, SCS is the next step.

What does spinal cord stimulator implantation involve?

You need surgery to implant the spinal cord stimulator device. For this reason, Dr. Bosch arranges an SCS trial to make sure the treatment works for you.

The trial implantation requires minor surgery. First, Dr. Bosch anesthetizes your back. Then he inserts one or two insulated wire leads through a needle into the epidural space surrounding your spinal cord.

To ensure accurate placement of the electrodes, Dr. Bosch moves them into slightly different positions and asks you to tell them which one works best. He then fixes the electrodes in that position. The leads connect to a trial stimulator that you wear on your belt for a week.

What happens after the SCS trial?

If your SCS trial is successful, you can go ahead with full implantation. This requires IV sedation or, in some cases, a general anesthetic.

Dr. Bosch takes the temporary leads out and refers the patient to a neurosurgeon who then replaces them with permanent leads. He makes an incision in your body and places the implantable pulse generator (IPG) battery under the skin of your buttocks or abdomen. He then connects the leads to the IPG battery.

SCS offers hope to patients who can’t get relief from neck and back pain by any other means. If you think you might benefit from SCS, call Southeast Spine Care & Pain Management today or book an appointment online.