Dr. Dean Edell: First, 68 million Americans suffered from some form of chronic pain. Many live a life consumed with finding relief. Sometimes medications help, sometimes they don't. Well, now there are several new therapies that harness pain killing power in a new way.
When Ben Franklin first experimented with electricity, he imagined amazing possibilities. His discoveries evolved into televisions, toasters and powerful painkillers that come in small packages.
Life dealt Gerard Dolan a lousy hand and on the job injury left him with constant back pain.
Gerard Dolan: I had five back surgeries total.
Dr. Dean Edell: But they didn't help.
Gerard Dolan: I was on about 14 Tylenols a day.
Dr. Dean Edell: Neither did medication.
Gerard Dolan: It was just like I was walking in days.
Dr. Dean Edell: Gerald finally found relief from a spinal implant.
Ken Follet: We use a small device that's very much like a heart pacemaker, that's attached to a small wire that can be placed over one of the nerves in the arm or the leg or over the spinal cord.
Dr. Dean Edell: The wire is hooked up to a battery underneath the skin.
Ken Follet: This device electrically activates nerves in the body or in the spinal cord and somehow seems to block the transmission of pain signals to the brain.
Dr. Dean Edell: Patients can adjust the intensity of this signal with the touch of a magnet.
Gerard Dolan: I would probably be on a wheel chair. But with this, I have life right now.
Male Speaker: You hate to see someone like that suffering like that.
Dr. Dean Edell: Similar technology is helping patients who suffer with pain in different parts of their body. For two years, Pauline Key was crippled by chronic arm pain.
Pauline Key: It would be sticking needles in your nerves.
Dr. Dean Edell: Her nerves were damaged by radiation used to treat breast cancer.
Pauline Key: The severest pain I ever had in my life.
Dr. Dean Edell: Her doctors implanted a device over the motor cortex of Pauline's brain.
Dr. Gary Heit: That's the primary area of the brain, controls movement.
Dr. Dean Edell: It too uses electric impulses to stimulate the area.
Dr. Gary Heit: It's just a very subtle backwards activation of the sensory system that somehow confuses it and the pain just disappears.
Richard Key: Before if I touched her like this, she would be screaming. It's just a miracle.
Ken Follet: This is a cath tube that we implant in.
Dr. Dean Edell: At the Cleveland clinic, doctors used stimulators as well as these specialized pumps to provide patients with relief.
Dr. Nagy Mekhail: It's the different way of administering medications.
Dr. Dean Edell: Instead of an electrical jolt, pumps deliver medication directly to the spinal cord.
Dr. Nagy Mekhail: If somebody is requiring 300 milligrams of morphine by mouth, all what he need in the spine to achieve equivalent pain relief is one milligram. You're delivering it exactly where you need it in the spine along the nerves and the side effects will be less.
Dr. Dean Edell: Like any minor surgery, there are risks associated with the pump and stimulator.
Dr. Nagy Mekhail: The stimulator can move. So we instruct the patients in the first six weeks to just be careful the way you move. As far as complications from the pump, side effect of the medications can happen.
Dr. Dean Edell: Many weekend athletes like John Cherry are familiar with the pain caused by tendonitis.
John Cherry: One weekend, I became a yard warrior.
Dr. Dean Edell: Swinging a leaf blower aggravated his golf elbow.
John Cherry: It would hurt to do almost anything involving the arm.
Dr. Dean Edell: Even something this simple or this, hurt.
John Cherry: It's really pretty severe.
Dr. Dean Edell: Now there is relief for weekend warriors like John using extracorporeal shockwave therapy or ESWT for short.
Dr. Spero Karas: Numerous clinical studies have shown it to be effective in managing a wide variety of tendonopathy and chronic tendonitis syndromes.
Dr. Dean Edell: The treatment focuses ultrasound shock waves on the affected area. The shock waves inhibit pain in the nerve endings of the tendon and increase blood flow.
Dr. Spero Karas: It's comfortable for the patient and it's well-tolerated.
Dr. Dean Edell: for patients like Gerald, John and Pauline these new technologies have worked.
Dr. Gary Heit: And you can return then to a functional and high quality of life, so they can at least go on living.
Dr. Dean Edell: Patients need to know that these techniques will not entirely eliminate chronic pain but can help them manage it enough to return to a more normal life.
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