Chronic neuropathic pain is a persistent pain lasting over three or six months. This type of pain shows no response to pharmacological treatments. Shefaa offers a minimally invasive procedure, where a small incision is made to implant electrodes over the spinal cord to restrain pain signals. This technique is known as “spinal cord stimulation”.

Another available option for treating chronic intractable pain is an intrathecal drug pump. It is a device with a pain medication reservoir connected to a catheter, which infuses the medication directly into the cerebrospinal fluid. Using this device provides more effective analgesia with lower opioid doses and lower adverse drug events.

Peripheral or central pathways of pain can be interrupted to provide pain relief.

Mostly this pain pathway interruption is achieved by the injection of a local anesthetic such as lidocaine or an opioid and a corticosteroid into a specific area of the body. This technique is called “neural blockade” or “nerve block”. Examples include cervical (neck pain), thoracic (upper back pain), lumbar (lower back pain), and caudal epidural (at the base of the spine). This method might also target coeliac plexus block (upper abdominal pain), facet joint block (lower back pain), trigeminal nerve blocks (face pain) and sphenopalatine nerve block (facial and head pain).

A fourth technique to treat chronic neuropathic pain is “percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (PENS)”. In PENS, the main aim is to mask the pain by decreasing pain sensation of a particular nerve. A low electric current is delivered through an electrode under the skin for this purpose.

Our experts at Shefaa offer a special technique for pain relief in patients with bone malignancies. This technique is called cementoplasty, where a special material (cement) is injected into the bone to stabilize its structure. If the cement is injected into the spinal vertebrate it is known as vertebroplasty, while if the cement injection is into the bone at the base of the spine (sacrum), the process is known as sacroplasty.