Chronic pain can trap you in a cycle where every treatment seems to help at first, then stops working. You try medications, injections, physical therapy, and maybe even surgery. For a while, you get some relief. Then the pain comes back, often worse than before.
At Advanced Pain Management Center in Portland, Oregon, interventional pain management specialist Vladimir Fiks, MD, offers spinal cord stimulation for patients whose pain persists despite other treatments. This technology doesn’t mask symptoms or require cutting into your spine. Instead, it intercepts pain signals before they reach your brain.
Your nerves send electrical signals from injured areas through your spinal cord to your brain, where you perceive them as pain. A spinal cord stimulator delivers low-level electrical pulses into the epidural space around your spinal cord. These pulses intercept pain signals before they reach your brain, replacing them with a different sensation or eliminating them entirely.
The device consists of thin leads that Dr. Fiks places in your epidural space and a small generator implanted under your skin in your upper buttock. You control the stimulator with a remote device, adjusting the intensity or turning it off whenever needed.
Before committing to a permanent implant, you try a temporary system for 5-7 days. The trial period uses leads taped to your back connected to an external device you carry with you. If the trial provides adequate pain relief, Dr. Fiks proceeds with permanent implantation.
Here are a few signs it might be time to consider spinal cord stimulation for your chronic pain:
Some patients try treatment after treatment, each providing temporary improvement before the pain returns. This pattern suggests your nervous system has become so sensitized that standard interventions can’t calm it down anymore.
Spinal cord stimulation works differently than other treatments because it blocks pain transmission rather than treating damaged tissues. When tissue-based treatments fail, interrupting the pain pathway itself often succeeds.
Some patients continue experiencing pain after spinal surgery or develop new pain in different locations. Scar tissue can form around nerves, hardware can irritate surrounding structures, or the surgery might have addressed the wrong pain source.
Additional operations rarely improve chronic pain after surgery and can create more problems by generating additional scar tissue or destabilizing other spinal segments. Spinal cord stimulation offers relief without cutting into your spine again or creating additional structural changes.
The technology also helps patients who aren't candidates for surgery due to medical conditions, previous failed operations, or spinal anatomy that makes surgery too risky.
Chronic pain becomes a problem when it dictates what you can and can't do. Maybe you’ve stopped going to dinner with friends because sitting that long hurts too much, or you can’t sleep through the night because every position aggravates your pain.
Spinal cord stimulation can reduce your pain enough to restore activities you’ve given up. Many patients decrease their medication doses once the stimulator controls their baseline pain levels, regaining mental clarity while maintaining pain relief.
Dr. Fiks recommends spinal cord stimulation for several chronic pain conditions, including:
Before starting a trial, Dr. Fiks evaluates whether spinal cord stimulation fits your specific condition and pain pattern.
Chronic pain shouldn’t force you to choose between ineffective treatments and invasive surgery. Spinal cord stimulation provides an option when standard approaches have failed and you need relief that doesn’t require additional operations.
Call Advanced Pain Management Center in Portland today or schedule a consultation online. Dr. Fiks can assess whether spinal cord stimulation might work for your chronic pain condition.
