A Good Kind Of Shock

Patients who once relied on heavy narcotics to treat their suffering are turning to costly surgical implants instead

- Michelle Cortez

Like millions of people caught up in America’s opioid crisis, Rick Surkin used to take a pill just to get out of bed in the morning. Until last year, the former firefighter relied on thrice-daily doses of the powerful painkiller OxyContin to numb the agony from a ruptured disc in his back. “You can take enough pills to mask the pain, but they take over your life,” he says. He’s been able to get back on his surfboard, and into the California surf shop he manages, because a medical implant sends 10,000 pulses of low-voltage electricity through his spine per second.

The series of tiny shocks, known as neuromodulation, has kept Surkin comfortable enough to ditch Oxy. “There is a lot more time I’m pain-free now,” he says. That allowed the 64-year-old to resume his outdoorsy lifestyle, and the benefits are more than just physical: His increased energy and better moods have helped revive his relationship with his wife. “I’m back to the person she married,” he says.

After a half-century on the fringes of medical science, neuromodulation is becoming a mainstream alternative to painkillers for those who can afford it. Sales of spinal stimulators, used mainly to soothe nerve pain in legs and backs, rose 20 percent, to $1.8 billion, in the U.S. last year. Doctors see potential for similar therapies to treat migraines, neck pain, and other ailments that afflict millions. “Particularly as opioids are being limited, you want physicians to have an option that gives this sort of an impact,” says Rami Elghandour, chief executive officer of Nevro Corp., the maker of Surkin’s implant.