Surgery is rarely your first choice when it comes to healing, but it can be the best path forward for regaining your health and your quality of life. When post-surgical pain strikes, however, you’re left with a new problem to address — one that’s hard to ignore.
To better enjoy the results of your surgery, Dr. Anjum Bux and our team offer neurostimulation, which is an innovative technique that can successfully address post-operative pain.
Here’s a look at why post-surgical pain develops and, more important, how we can relieve your discomfort through neurostimulation.
A closer look at post-surgical pain
Many people who undergo surgery are hoping for relief from a painful problem, so when post-surgical pain strikes, they’re, understandably, frustrated. While a certain measure of discomfort after a surgical procedure is to be expected, persistent post-operative pain (three months or more) is a clear and present danger and as many as 20% to 56% of patients encounter this issue.
The human nervous system is incredibly complex and there’s still much that we don’t understand. What we do know is that nerve damage and inflammation are the primary culprits behind acute post-surgical pain. The path from acute pain to chronic pain, however, is less clear, but researchers believe that it occurs due to molecular and cellular changes in your central and peripheral nervous systems that lead to heightened sensitization.
The result is that you’re left searching for solutions for ongoing pain that doesn’t have an identifiable source that’s “fixable.”
Neurostimulation and persistent post-operative pain
As you research your options, you may not be terribly keen on the idea of opioid medications, which carry a risk for addiction. Nor do you want temporary solutions to what’s become an ongoing problem.
Neurostimulation, on the other hand, is a drug-free solution that doesn’t carry much risk and it’s designed to help you manage your pain long into the future.
In the most basic terms, neurostimulation is a pain-management technique in which we implant a device in your back that emits electrical impulses to disrupt the pain signaling between your spinal cord and your brain.
To determine whether this approach might work for your post-surgical pain, we first set you up with an external neurostimulator. Should the trial prove effective, we then thread leads into the epidural space of your spinal cord during a quick outpatient procedure.
Once in place, the neurostimulator works immediately to “garble” the pain messaging and should provide you with long-term relief from your pain without the need for medications.
If you’d like to explore whether neurostimulation might be the answer to your post-surgical pain, contact one of our three locations in Lexington, Cynthiana, or Danville, Kentucky, to set up an appointment.
