How Spinal Cord Stimulation Works

While Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is cutting-edge technology, it’s actually not as complicated as it seems. Your nerves and brain are constantly communicating with each other. And when you feel pain, it’s because those nerves are sending a pain signal to your brain. Here’s how SCS helps— SCS cloaks the pain signals coming from your lower back or legs from reaching your brain. So while the signals are being sent, the brain is not receiving them. With SCS, a small implanted pulse generator (or IPG) and thin wires (known as leads) are placed into the body. To manage your pain, the leads deliver tiny pulses to the nerves that mask pain signals traveling to the brain. Some patients say SCS feels like a gentle tingling or fluttering sensation that replaces the pain. The medical term for this is “paresthesia”. But the feeling is different for everyone — and people differ in the amount of pain relief they receive with SCS therapy.