Unfortunately, many patients with chronic pain do not respond to conventional therapies, including drugs, anesthetic injections, and corticosteroid injections, as well as behavioral therapies. Recently, neurostimulation techniques such as rTMS, peripheral nerve stimulation, spinal cord stimulation, deep brain stimulation, and motor cortex stimulation have been used in chronic-pain therapy.
Using rTMS, descending inhibitory neural pathways are triggered at the dorsal-horn level to reduce chronic pain. rTMS is known to alter neuronal activities in the periaqueductal gray matter, which is involved in pain processing.
If your chronic pain has reached debilitating levels and is impacting your daily routine it may be time to consider TMS. If other approaches to treatment aren’t working, TMS could be a solution. Even if you’re experiencing minimal improvement from another treatment modality, the powerful antidepressive effect of TMS may be a wise addition to your chronic pain treatment plan.
