7 Back Pain Breakthroughs (page 2 of 5)

New Neurostimulator: A Miracle?

Barbara Sweeney's back hurt for 20 years. The 63-year-old hospice chaplain from Silver Spring, Maryland, had been on an agonizing odyssey of doctors' visits and treatments. Painkillers, physical therapy, epidural shots, even methadone: Sweeney had tried them all, getting little relief. In 2000 neurosurgeons diagnosed her condition as stenosis, a narrowing of the spinal canal, which pinches the nerves.

Over the next five years, she underwent two spinal fusions to relieve the stress on her back nerves. But instead of lasting improvement, Sweeney experienced new pains, and her doctors were mystified.

Back pain had gradually taken over her life. She could no longer stand up straight without hurting and needed a cane to walk. "I felt like I'd grown old before my time," she says. "I'm a fighter, but it was hard not to get depressed."

Then, in the fall of 2006, she heard about a "pain pacemaker," an implantable device introduced by Medtronic in 1969 and modeled after its heart pacemaker. Over the years, the company had refined the device, formally known as a neurostimulator, by making it increasingly smaller and longer lasting. One of its latest models, the RestoreAdvanced neurostimulator, can operate for nine years with a battery recharge only once every four to six weeks. The size of a pocket watch, the device works by sending mild electrical impulses along the spinal cord, blocking pain signals to the brain. "We're still not sure why stimulating nerves provides relief, just that it does," says Richard Kuntz, MD, president of Medtronic Neuromodulation in Minneapolis.

With her options dwindling, Sweeney scheduled a pacemaker implantation last February. Zachary Levine, MD, a neurosurgeon with the Washington Brain & Spine Institute, made a two-inch incision in Sweeney's right hip, where the neurostimulator was implanted. Through a smaller incision in the middle of her back, Dr. Levine delicately fed a lead with eight electrodes to points along her spine, and down to the device. With Sweeney sedated but still responsive, Dr. Levine chatted with her to pinpoint where the neurostimulator lead provided the most benefit. Within an hour, Dr. Levine closed the last stitch, and Sweeney experienced something she hadn't felt in decades: well-being. "The relief was immediate," Sweeney says. "The pain was gone."

Since then, she has thrown away her cane. She now sleeps through the night, and in the spring, she started a water exercise class. "I feel like a new woman," she says. "I'm finally able to do things I couldn't do for years." She pauses, carefully patting a gentle swelling in her lower back. "This little device," she says, smiling broadly, "turned out to be a miracle."

Infrared rays were discovered in 1800, but it took another two centuries to figure out how to harness their power to reduce back pain. The Lumbar Wrap, created by Canadian inventor Lawrence Gordon of IR Wraps, resembles the black support belts worn by people who frequently lift heavy loads.

The device uses low-level infrared energy -- the same type of heat used to warm food in restaurants -- to improve blood circulation and promote healing. In a small study in 2006, researchers at the Rothbart Pain Management Clinic in Ontario found that the Lumbar Wrap reduced painful symptoms by half.

The 39 adults in the study, who had suffered lower back pain for more than six years, found relief with daily therapy over the course of seven weeks, and reported decreasing pain levels when turning and bending in different directions. Gordon invented the belt after hurting his own back while training horses, and says other back pain sufferers have felt better wearing the belt while sleeping or doing daily activities.

One potential side effect: Prolonged use can cause a relatively harmless browning of the skin. And at $2,335, the Lumbar Wrap isn't cheap.

Gordon is trying to get his invention approved as a medical device in Canada and the United States, in the hope that it will become more widely available, through doctors, chiropractors and pain clinics.

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• Arthritis
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