From the Popular Press: What Your Patients are Reading

Traditional prescriptions for chronic pain include bedrest, painkillers, and simply living in constant discomfort. Now there is a new option for chronic pain sufferers, although its use remains limited. Stimulating devices that blunt pain with electrical pulses can be implanted near the spine. Some patients claim the devices have changed their lives, allowing them to live without the burden of constant pain. Others are disturbed by the low-grade buzzing sensation caused by the electrical pulses, which block pain signals traveling through the nervous system to the brain. The overall cost of the implant, surgery, and follow-up care is roughly $40,000, but defenders of spinal cord stimulators claim this figure is much lower than the cost of numerous surgeries and drug prescriptions to treat chronic pain.

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