Some pain treatments and medications are more versatile than others. Innovative treatments can help solve the chronic pain problems that can occur all throughout the body. Getting spinal cord stimulation in Colonia can help the patients who have not gotten the results that they’ve wanted from other forms of treatment. It’s an advanced technique that truly targets the underlying causes of pain directly and efficiently.
Stimulating the Spinal Cord
Technicians use specialized devices that stimulate the spinal cord using electric currents. These electric currents have low voltage ratings, so they’re safe to use. This electricity can stop pain signals altogether, or at least change them. Pain is a physical phenomenon, and this method literally interferes with the biological processes that lead to the experience of pain.
Experts will not implant these devices immediately. They have to make sure that the treatment will work for a specific patient first. Patients will respond to most treatments in many different ways. While getting evaluated for this treatment, patients will initially have the devices placed over their clothes while still receiving the right electric current through leads.
Your pain symptoms might start to subside immediately during this testing period. If this is the case, the medical professionals involved may decide to officially implant the device. This process might last for a total of two hours.
Receiving the Device
If you’re concerned about the process of having the device implanted, it’s worth noting that you’ll be under anesthesia at that point. The procedure would be uncomfortable otherwise, but this won’t be the case in practice. The use of anesthesia also makes it easier for the people involved to implant the device in a very precise manner.
The location of the device will vary somewhat since the chronic pain of patients can originate in different areas. You’ll have leads positioned at the spinal canal. The procedure involves minor incisions and the attachment of the leads, but the incisions won’t be left open.
This exact surgical procedure might only take an hour, and it shouldn’t take more than an hour and a half total. You might need an additional half-hour to adjust, and medical professionals will spend some time taking notes and making observations. They’ll want to make sure that everything went successfully. After that point, you can usually return home. Your pain management plan will change immediately as a result.
Switching to a New Treatment Method
Many patients specifically choose the stimulation of the spinal cord because they’re looking for an alternative to pain medication. Not everyone responds well to pain medication, and the side effects might be an issue for many patients. Surgery also is not an option for everyone, and there are plenty of patients who want to avoid getting surgery in order to reduce their pain levels.
While the implantation of these devices involves minor surgery, most of the other surgeries that relate to pain management are much more substantial. Physical therapy won’t do enough to help all pain patients. While you might need to give physical therapy more time to work, it could also be time to try something new.
If you have a pacemaker or certain psychological conditions, the stimulation of the spinal cord won’t be an option for you. However, this is a method that can work well for a wide range of different pain patients today.