For millions of Americans suffering from debilitating nerve pain, a once-overlooked option has emerged as an alternative to high doses of opioids: implanted medical devices using electricity to counteract pain signals the same way noise-canceling headphones work against sound.
The approach, called neuro-modulation, has been a godsend for Linda Landy, who was a 42-year-old runner when a foot surgery went awry in 2008. She was diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome, a condition dubbed the suicide disease by doctors: The pain is so unrelenting that many people take their own lives.
Last November, Landy underwent surgery to get an Abbott Laboratories device that stimulates the dorsal root ganglion, a spot in the spine that was the pain conduit for her damaged nerves. A year after getting her implant, called DRG, she’s cut drastically on pain pills.
“The DRG doesn’t take the pain completely away, but it changes it into something I can live with,” said Landy, a mother of three in Fort Worth, Texas. She’s now now able to walk again and travel by plane without using a wheelchair. “It sounds minor, but it’s really huge.”
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2 comments:
It doesn't work on Democrats they have no spine.
It may work for some people and even this woman admits it doesn't take all pain away, but neither do opioids. They wanted to implant one of those, among other things, in me and I even tried the temporary one to see if it would work. It wouldn't.
I would love to be able to use something besides these dang pills but having a foreign object (or should I say ANOTHER foreign object) in my body is not an option. I already have multiple rods, screws, and brackets on my spine. The screws alone are 1/2 inch diameter and 3 inches long.
I have had 5 operations on my spine and wish I never had the first one. Doctors and surgeons don't make money on pills. They make their money on operations and implants such as this.
And what they don't tell you is that after you have one operation you will HAVE to have another because the first one puts more stress damage on the ones above and below it.
The pain got so bad I would have tried anything back then. But in the long run, it's really not worth it and then you have to tolerate nurses' attitudes when you have to get pain pills for the rest of your life. Many around here have no clue how much pain you are in, think and act like you only want the pills to "get high on" and treat you like garbage.
Operations should be the very last resort and avoided altogether if you can stand the pain.
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