Third-Tier Pain Therapies
Certain chronic pain conditions may resist level-one and level-two pain therapies. If this is the case, a doctor may consider more advanced therapies to relieve pain.
Surgery. Surgery may be performed to repair or correct an anatomical defect or a defect due to an illness or injury. Surgery may also be performed on a nerve to interrupt the transmission of pain signals.
Neuromodulation. Neuromodulation therapies are implantable therapies for the management of chronic pain. These therapies include drug administration systems (drug pumps) and neurostimulation, also known as spinal cord stimulation or SCS.
Neuroablation. Neuroablation is a surgical technique that permanently blocks nerve pathways to the brain by destroying the nerves and tissue at the source of the chronic pain. Several procedures are used, including cordotomy (a surgeon cuts a tract of the spinal cord), rhizotomy (a surgeon destroys a specific nerve near the spinal cord), and thalamotomy (a surgeon uses radiofrequency energy to heat and destroy specific cells deep in the brain).
Back to the chronic pain treatment continuum.