What Chronic Pain Conditions Can Be Treated with Spinal Cord Stimulation?

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS)

This condition can appear following a stroke or heart attack. It may also be diagnosed after an injury or surgery. Complex regional pain syndrome symptoms can include throbbing, sensitivity, swelling, change in skin color, and stiffness. After specific symptoms set in, such as muscle spasms, complex regional pain syndrome cannot be reversed.

Multiple Back Surgeries (Post-Laminectomy Syndrome)

Some patients who have had back surgeries to remove part of their vertebra to relieve nerve compression continue to feel pain or may feel additional symptoms. This condition is known as post-laminectomy syndrome and includes numbness, tingling, sharp pain, or weakness.

Degenerative Disc Disease

When injured due to drying out or other trauma, the vertebrae's discs can atrophy. Due to a low blood supply, discs in the spine have a low rate of repairing themselves, and the damage can lead to degenerative disc disease. Symptoms include pain in the arms and hands, lower back, thighs, and neck. People with degenerative disc disease often find sitting more difficult than standing and experience relief when lying down.

Arachnoiditis

Arachnoiditis can result from a spinal surgery complication, spinal tap, epidural injection, or other spinal trauma. People with this condition report feeling insects crawling all over their skin, tingling, numbness, or weakness in their legs. Some have also described the sensation as water rolling down their leg.

Epidural Fibrosis

When scar tissue builds up around a spinal nerve root after surgery, it is called epidural fibrosis. Those experiencing epidural fibrosis experience leg and back pain.

To see where we got this information and to learn more about it click here.