Did you know 80% of people will experience low back pain at some point in their lifetime? And of those people, a good portion will experience pain that lasts for three months or more, affecting their everyday tasks. Now a new device is allowing patients to take back control while reducing their pain.
Arlene Vélez Díaz has been making mosaic art pieces for more than 20 years.
“That’s my relaxing time. My creative space and I love it,” Vélez Díaz told Ivanhoe.
But chronic back pain caused by a fall made her set aside her passion.
“I literally thought I wouldn’t be able to walk again. It was that bad,” Vélez Díaz said.
She tried physical therapy, medications, injections, even surgery, nothing got rid of her back pain for good. Then Vélez Díaz went to pain management physician Dr. Candice Burnette. After a series of different treatments, Burnette suggested differential target multiplex or DTM spinal cord stimulation, a neurostimulator placed under the patients’ skin.
“It involves placing small wires in the spinal column and those wires send out a signal that interferes with the brains ability to perceive pain,” Burnette said.
A study on the DTM therapy found…
“That 80% of patients with the DTM therapy achieved 50% or greater reduction in the chronic low back pain,” Burnette shared.
This is compared to 51% of patients with conventional spinal cord stimulation. Vélez Díaz got the device implanted in December 2020 and is feeling a lot better now.
“I just regained my life back,” Vélez Díaz said.
And is able to continue making her colorful masterpieces.
Patients can do a week-long trial before they have the device implanted. This option tends to be for those who have tried other treatments for back pain that did not work.