Living Well: New Technology helps Baptist Health treat chronic pain | KLRT
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The CDC says 20% of all adults have suffered from chronic pain sometime within the last three months.
One in three people over age 65 struggle with it regularly.
A breakthrough technology at Baptist Health is allowing people with chronic pain the ability to feel better again.
80-year-old Robert Kelly of Clarendon has suffered from back pain for several years.
“Even sitting around the house, even laid back in my recliner, it was still hurting,” Kelly said.
He said the pain at one point was so bad, he couldn’t even walk.
Robert tried everything, but nothing really worked, until he met Dr. Gunter Cain at Baptist Health Spine Center.
Dr. Cain treated Robert with a procedure called spinal cord stimulation.
“Spinal cord stimulation is a therapy that we utilize to interrupt the pain signaling pathways in the spinal cord,” Dr. Cain said.
Cain said the procedure is helpful for pain that starts from the spine, as well as from the peripheral nerves.
“But even during that time, you’re up and about. you’re not constrained to the bed or anything like that,” Dr. Cain said.
“I’d say I’m at 90% controlled pain,” Robert said, “I went fishing for the first time this year and I hadn’t been in 6 or 7 years.”
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