Chronic Back Pain And Morphine Pumps

Chronic back pain is a condition wherein a person suffers from severe back pain for a long time. Back pains that last for about three months are considered to be under this state. This condition could last for months and could be due to a lot of causes. Because of the huge possibilities that could cause this condition, it is very difficult to pin point the root cause of chronic back pains.

Prescribed drugs could treat most back pains. There are a lot of variations of over the counter medicines that are proven to reduce back pains. Painkillers are also a common means to soothe back pains. However, the effect of these could only last for some time. It could not give permanent relief to the person suffering from this condition.

Once the effect of the medication is gone, you will suffer from the same back pain again. Because of this, there has been a constant search for the most effective and longer lasting relief from back pains. Good thing, there is a way to find relief from back pains. There is an instrument that is being surgically implanted on the patient called morphine pumps.

Morphine pumps are created to be able to provide very small quantities of medication to the spinal fluid. A morphine pump contains a metal pump, which stores and delivers the morphine. It also contains a catheter that is responsible for delivering the morphine from the pump to the part of the body where the medication should take effect. Nowadays, there are two variations for this pump. There is a constant pump wherein it delivers the medication at a constant rate and a programmable pump wherein it delivers the medication according to the specified rate in the program.

The programmable pump could change medication deliver rate depending on the settings provided. If a patient choose to have the morphine pump installed, the operation will not take place immediately. Before installing the morphine pump in the body, a trial will be conducted by the surgeon. During this trial, the surgeon will place a temporary pump on the patient to determine if the surgery is really necessary.

It will also determine if the procedure will have positive results on the patient. If the patient was able to feel comfort during the installation of the temporary pump, the permanent pump will be placed. However, even if this methodology has been proven as a long lasting remedy for back pains, experts are not making this as the first option to address chronic back pains.

They are only using this as an alternative if management of back pains failed. This recommendation from them could be due to the fact that a morphine pump installation has its complications as well. Infection, bleeding, spinal cord injury, catheter fracture or even death, are some of the complications that could arise after undergoing morphine pump surgery.