I have back pain and my surgeon says I may benefit from a spinal cord stimulator. Should I go for it?

The medical treatment of back pain sucks. In the last 2 decades, surgeons have gotten together with the pharmaceutical companies and developed devices that can be implanted into the spinal cord. The devices consist of an electrical generator that delivers pulses to a targeted area of the spinal cord. The devices are implanted using a surgical procedure and are powered by an implanted battery. How these devices work is not known but thousands of such devices are inserted each year. So do these implants work for pain relief?

From the literature, spinal cord devices for pain work in less than 3% of patients with only some types of back pain. The data show that these devices are absolutely crap for failed back surgery and any other type of complex back pain.

Unfortunately, the field of pain control is full of surgeons who have turned business people and have started to insert these devices in anyone who walks into their office. These pain devices are not reimbursed by any insurance company, are prohibitively expensive and most times do not work. So even if you have any common sense, one of the things you should do is avoid surgeons who want to scam you out of your hard earned money by inserting devices which basically suck.