For 47-year old Tammy Hausch, a career transcriptionist and mother, chronic back pain was severely limiting her life. “It got so bad I couldn’t sit, drive or work. I had to crawl to the bathroom,” she recalls. With her children gone and moved away, she eventually had to sell her house and move in with her parents. “My life was a wreck and no doctor at the time could help me.”
Chronic pain is a serious public health issue that remains largely under-treated and misunderstood. The American Pain Foundation estimates 76.5 million Americans are affected by chronic pain. The National Institutes of Health also estimates chronic pain costs the U.S. economy $100 billion a year in lost work time and medical expenses.
Tammy suffered from a disease that causes cysts on her sacrum. While a Kansas City back surgeon removed the most of the cysts, the resulting back surgery did not alleviate her back pain. She sought advice from doctors at Johns Hopkins in Maryland to the Laser Institute in Arizona, but found no relief. “I tried pain medication, physical therapy, everything that is, until I received my spinal implant at the Mississippi Valley Pain Clinic in Davenport.”
Dr. John Dooley, a pain specialist at the Pain Clinic, remembers Tammy. “She felt hopeless about her situation. And she is not alone. I see many patients who live with undiagnosed chronic pain in their backs, legs or arms, including many who have undergone surgery but still feel pain is limiting their lives. Tammy was a perfect candidate for spinal implantation, which is like a pacemaker for pain.”
Pacemaker for the Spine
In April 2010, Dr. Dooley temporarily implanted the device in Tammy for a weeklong trial. The neurostimulator, called the Eon Mini™ is slightly larger than a U.S. silver dollar and was developed by St. Jude Medical. “It’s similar in function and appearance to a cardiac pacemaker,” explains Dr. Dooley. “The neurostimulator delivers mild electrical pulses to the spinal cord, which interrupt or mask the pain signals’ transmission to the brain.”
“The technique is a amazing,” says Tammy. “I was in the procedure room just over an hour. He put it in just the right place, and I began to feel relief.” The positive results were enough to convince her to undergo surgery for permanent implantation. A year later, Tammy is walking, driving and hopes to return to work.
“I am a different person. People who see me now ask what’s changed, and I tell them about my spinal implant. It definitely takes some getting used to. I can feel the vibrations in my right hip when the stimulator is working. I can control it with a remote I carry, depending on my different levels of pain. I can sit, walk and have so much more energy!
“I believe with every day I will get stronger. I’ve talked to other patients who have the device, and one told me she was playing tennis five years after her implantation. I have hope now, and it’s what keeps me going.”
For more information on the neurostimulator implant, call the Patient Advocate for the Mississippi Valley Surgery Center and Pain Clinic: (563) 344-6653
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