The ONSTIM Treatment
What is ONSTIM Orthopedic Nerve Stimulation?
To relieve your pain, we have to first understand how pain works. Pain travels from the source of your pain – your knee, your ankle, etc. – along the peripheral nerves of your ankle, knee, back, etc. to your brain, where those pain signals are processed and you realize you are in pain. When peripheral nerve pain signals are disrupted or blocked, you no longer receive the pain signals and you no longer feel pain.
ONSTIM, or Orthopedic Nerve Stimulation, is a new approach to peripheral nerve stimulation. Our ONSTIM Orthopedic Nerve Stimulation Centers offer a non-opioid, minimally-invasive procedure that is done at a same-day surgery center. Traditionally, peripheral nerve pain has been managed by bulky implants with wires and electrodes implanted by pain management specialists, or costly pain surgery that may not be effective. The ONSTIM Treatment uses a new wireless approach to deliver nerve stimulation to a receiver implanted by an ONSTIM-trained surgeon. The ONSTIM Treatment is minimally-invasive, and done in an outpatient center during a healthcare holiday that lets you feel immediate relief.
The ONSTIM Solution
The non-opioid, minimally-invasive ONSTIM Treatment is used for peripheral nerve stimulation to provide intractable, therapeutic pain relief of peripheral nerve origin.
The treatment utilizes pulsed electrical current to create an electrical energy field to alter the transmission of pain signals to the brain. The system has composed of:
- Implantable electrode component.
- Receiver component (seperate from the electrode).
- External worn transmitter.
- External worn battery.
An Orthopedic Solution to an Orthopedic Pain Management Problem
Dr. Erik Nilssen is a highly-trained orthopedic surgeon and recognized expert in orthopedic procedures. Dr. Nilseen recognized that orthopedic surgeons are trained in surgical intervention to fix orthopedic issues that cause pain, but are often not involved in pain management. Most pain management doctors have no surgical experience, as they typically come from non-surgical disciplines, and implantation is something a pain management doctor rarely does. Dr. Nilssen saw the opportunity to leverage his surgical skills with an early intervention to reduce or remove pain and potentially eliminate surgery.
Dr. Nilssen and the team at ONSTIM are not only users of the Curonix Freedom Peripheral Nerve Stimulator, but are also key opinion leaders and help develop the technology and techniques. Dr. Nilssen regularly lectures to surgeons and doctors interested in using the Freedom PNS, and teaches courses on how to implant the device.
Is the ONSTIM Treatment Surgery?
Any type of implanted device is technically surgery, because you are implanting a component into your body. Some surgery, described as “subcutaneous” surgery, simply means below the skin, where other surgeries referred to as minimally-invasive uses tiny cuts to access organs inside your body. Peripheral Nerve Stimulators are implanted in the musculature of your body next to the nerves by the area of pain.
Pain management specialists often perform injections and offer pain management solutions that are non-surgical in nature and non-invasive by design. An orthopedic surgeon, on the other hand, has a wealth of experience treating the issues that cause pain, and performing complex surgeries to fix these issues. Because the ONSTIM treatment is an implanted device, the precise placement of the device, along with the techniques to create the “tunnel” needed for implantation, is best delivered by someone with actual surgical experience. Precision placement also reduces surgical time and recovery time.
