Spinal Cord Stimulator

Spinal Cord Stimulators services offered in Kingwood, Kingwood, TX

Chronic pain that’s severely impacting your life might improve with a spinal cord stimulator. Board-certified pain management specialists Chandler Mann, MD, and Leonard Trahan, MD, of the North Houston Pain Center in Kingwood, Texas, use spinal cord stimulation to ease the pain of conditions that don’t respond to anything else. They offer trial periods to decide if a spinal cord stimulator is right for you. To find out if your condition is suitable for spinal cord stimulation, call the North Houston Pain Center today or book an appointment online.

Spinal Cord Stimulators Q & A

What is a spinal cord stimulator?

A spinal cord stimulator is a device the North Houston Pain Center team implants in your body to manage chronic pain. The stimulator goes under your skin and connects to nerves in your spine.

Mild electrical pulses from the spinal cord stimulator scramble the signals going from the nerves to your brain. As a result, you feel a pleasant tingling sensation (paresthesia) instead of chronic pain. With some newer technologies, there’s no sensation at all.

Why might I need a spinal cord stimulator?

Spinal cord stimulation is a treatment for pain that doesn’t respond to any other approaches. Most people with pain that persists for long periods or never goes away benefit from the many treatments the North Houston Pain Center team offers, such as:

Physical therapy
Medication
Platelet-rich plasma (PRP)
Epidural corticosteroid injections
Nerve blocks
Radiofrequency ablation
Kyphoplasty

A combination of several or more treatments successfully reduces or resolves chronic pain conditions like herniated discs and spinal stenosis. However, some patients have pain that doesn’t lessen enough using these methods.

If you’re one of them, spinal cord stimulation could relieve the pain or make it considerably more manageable. You control the strength of the electric signal using a hand-held device, increasing the effect when your pain flares up and reducing it as the pain eases off.

What does spinal cord stimulator implantation involve?

Before implanting your permanent spinal cord stimulator, the North Houston Pain Center team gives you a temporary unit to try for a week. The procedure involves having electrodes (wire leads) in your spine that connect to an external stimulator.

Your provider implants the leads, carefully positioning them to have maximum effect on the pain nerves. When the leads are in position, your provider attaches them to the external unit, which houses a battery pack. You carry the unit around with you to see how well spinal cord stimulation reduces your pain.

If your spinal cord stimulator trial is successful, the North Houston Pain Center team completes the implantation process. With you under anesthetic, your provider replaces the leads with permanent ones that connect to a small device they implant under your skin (the generator).

Although it’s called permanent spinal cord stimulator implantation, the device is removable should it need to be removed. To find out how your chronic pain could improve with a spinal cord stimulator, call North Houston Pain Center today or book an appointment online.