You wake each morning wondering how much your chronic pain will interfere with your day, and you’re tired of feeling like a prisoner. You’re in good company — 1 in 5 people in the Western world struggles with daily pain.
Board-certified anesthesiologist Dr. Anjum Bux and the rest of the team here at Bux Pain Management understand the burden of chronic pain, so we offer a wide range of services that tackle pain from every angle. Our extensive suite includes intrathecal pump therapy, and we review its multiple benefits here.
Going straight to the source of your pain
An intrathecal pump is an implant that delivers pain-relieving medications into the intrathecal space along your spinal cord. This space is filled with cerebrospinal fluid and lies between the thin membranes surrounding your spinal cord.
Most of your peripheral nervous system, which includes all the nerves outside your central nervous system (your spinal cord and brain), stems from 31 pairs of spinal nerves and roots that branch out from your spinal cord.
This means that, with an intrathecal pump, we can dull the pain at the nerve’s source, allowing us to address pain in your back and other areas of your body.
For example, of the 1 in 5 people who suffer from chronic pain, between 30% and 40% suffer from peripheral neuropathy. With an intrathecal pump, we target the nerve roots along your spinal cord to reduce the pain signaling from your peripheral nervous system to your brain.
Less pain medication, less risk of addiction
One of the serious risks of treating chronic pain with opioid-based medications is addiction. With an intrathecal pump, we thwart this threat from two angles.
First, since we’re delivering the medication straight to the source of your pain, you only need about 1/300 the amount of medication you would take orally.
Second, there’s little chance of misusing the medications since we program the pump to deliver the doses you need when you need them.
Only a minor procedure
If you’re hesitant about turning to surgery to relieve your chronic pain, we understand. Surgery can be risky and invasive. When we implant your intrathecal pump, we use a minimally invasive in-office visit. First, we make you comfortable and apply a local anesthetic to the area where we insert the catheter into your spine.
We then make a small incision and insert the pump just under your skin in your lower abdomen and connect it to the catheter.
Once everything is in position, and we’ve programmed the pump, you’re free to go home.
An intrathecal pump is an excellent pain management option that’s highly effective and avoids some of the risks of surgery and/or taking medications.
If you’d like to explore whether an intrathecal pump is right for you, please contact one of our four offices in Lexington, Cynthiana, Maysville, or Danville, Kentucky, to schedule a consultation.
