4 Benefits of Spinal Cord Stimulation for Managing Back Pain

Every day is a struggle, thanks to chronic back pain, and you just want to find some relief. Whether you’re new to back pain or have been searching for solutions for a while, it’s worth considering spinal cord stimulation.

Our team at Sunshine Spine and Pain Specialists, PLLC, led by Dr. Amanda Fernandez and Dr. Peter Fernandez, specializes in finding solutions for chronic back pain. One treatment that’s garnered success is spinal cord stimulation.

Spinal cord stimulation — how it works

Before we get into the benefits of spinal cord stimulation (SCS), let’s take a look at how this neuromodulation approach relieves pain.

Your spine is the source of your back pain in two ways. First, there’s a problem in your spine that’s causing the discomfort. Second, your spine acts as a conduit that connects your peripheral nervous system to your central nervous system — there are 31 pairs of spinal nerves and roots that exit your spine.

With spinal cord stimulation, we target the nerve roots or fibers responsible for sending the pain signaling to your brain with mild electrical impulses that scramble the pain messaging.

To deliver these impulses, we implant electrodes into the area where the nerves are overactive. We also implant a small generator under your skin to power the impulses.

Why spinal cord stimulation is so advantageous

About 50,000 spinal cord stimulators are implanted annually, and this number is growing each year as people realize the benefits of this approach to managing back pain.

The primary reasons why our patients turn to SCS is due to:

1. Less reliance on medications

Taking prescription opioid-based medications to manage back pain is incredibly risky, thanks to the threat of addiction. About two million people with an opioid use disorder use prescription opioids.

SCS is a great way to avoid opioid addiction.

2. No surgery

Another reason SCS is a great option is that you might be able to avoid surgery. Spine surgery can be risky, and there’s no guarantee that it will relieve your back pain. In fact, back surgeries are only successful a little more than half the time, which leaves many people dealing with failed back surgery syndrome.

With SCS, you can avoid back surgery with a far less invasive approach to pain management.

3. There’s a trial period

Before we implant the generator under your skin, we first conduct a trial run to ensure that SCS works for you and that we’re targeting the right area. We insert the electrodes and then outfit you with an external battery pack that powers the electrical impulses,

If this trial period is successful, only then do we implant the generator.

4. You control your pain management

Once we implant your spinal cord stimulator, you’re in charge of your pain management. You can turn the device off and on and increase or decrease the power of the impulses within preset ranges.

Clearly, there are many great benefits of using spinal cord stimulation to relieve your back pain.

If you want to explore whether spinal cord stimulation is right for you, we invite you to contact our office in Sarasota, Florida. You can call 941-867-7463 or use our online booking request form.