Someone living with significant back, leg, or nerve pain might describe their chronic discomfort as being like a car alarm that will not shut off. The surprising thing is that for millions of people, chronic pain lingers long after an injury or medical condition have been successfully treated. Why? Because damaged nerves continue sending distress signals to the brain.

Traditional treatments call for addressing these distress signals with prescription medication. But at Lone Star Pain Medicine in Weatherford, Texas, pain management doctors prefer interventional treatments that offer a more direct approach.

One way of doing so is to ‘rewire’ how the body processes pain signals through the use of spinal cord stimulation (SCS). To a patient who has been living with chronic pain for years, SCS can seem like some kind of magic. But it’s actually science rooted in two foundational mechanisms:

1. Signal Interception

In order for you to feel pain, a number of things have to happen. Here is what goes on inside your body:

• A peripheral nerve detects damage.

• The nerve sends a signal through the spinal cord.

• Your brain interprets that signal as pain.

If any part of the chain is broken along these three steps, you are never made consciously aware of pain. With this known biological fact, doctors who recommend SCS understand that the therapy can intercept pain signals at the spinal cord. Intercepting them prevents them from ever reaching the brain.

How It Works

An SCS device is a small electronic device with microscopic lead wires implanted in the epidural space along the spinal column. By carefully placing the wires in a specific location, a doctor makes it possible to deliver low-level electrical currents precisely where the affected nerve merges with the spine.

The electrical pulses are a lot like jamming signals. Instead of pain signals racing up the spinal cord to the brain, the device’s electrical impulses intercept them so that they go no further.

2. Pain Masking

The experts at Lone Star say that signal interception is only half the equation. They explain that once a pain signal is intercepted, the principle of pain masking takes over. The SCS device replaces the raw and uncomfortable pain signal with a neutral sensory input.

How It Works

Doctors can design pain masking based on a patient’s nerve profile and the frequency settings on the SCS device. Pain masking offers relief in one of two distinct ways:

• Paresthesia – A traditional SCS device replaces sharp, burning, or shooting pain with a gentler and more soothing tingling sensation. The device essentially overwrites the pain channel so that the brain perceives a gentle and comfortable vibration instead of agonizing pain.

• Sub-Perception – Sub-perception pain masking is also known as silent masking. It is accomplished with a more advanced SCS device that emits signals at a frequency so high the nervous system cannot detect them. Pain signals are still intercepted, but they are replaced with new signals that produce no physical sensation.

Pain management doctors may have access to one or both types of devices. But ultimately, it is the patient who decides whether or not SCS is worth trying.

Relief Without Systemic Side Effects

The combined benefits of signal interception and pain masking are very real. According to Lone Star, the most important thing is offering significant pain relief without systemic side effects. Unlike prescription medications, SCS does not directly impact other parts of the body, including the liver and digestive tract. It does not lead to brain fog, lethargy, or drowsiness. And for so many patients, SCS gives them their lives back.