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A Case of Spinal Cord Stimulator Recharging Interruption in Wound Healing
1Division of Pain Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology, Hospital for Special Surgery, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY.
Objectives:
To illustrate the obstacles and problems with electrical fields (EFs) in treatment and management of skin wounds. Unlike the literature that gives evidence for EF promoting wound healing, there is relatively little research to illustrate the interference of wound healing with EFs.
Materials And Methods:
This is a case report of a patient who underwent spinal cord stimulator implantation, and presented with delayed wound healing postoperatively. Postoperative workup for infection was negative. Spinal cord stimulator was programmed to use higher frequencies than traditional settings, which required recharging the pulse generator daily. There was spontaneous improvement of the clinical presentation resulting in adequate wound healing after changing the programming to less frequent recharging requirements.
Results:
In our case, despite the presence of clinical signs similar to a surgical site infection, the wound healing was most likely interrupted and delayed secondary to the electric field generated due to the frequent recharges of the pulse generator.
Conclusions:
It is possible that EF can also negatively impact healing of a wound, and thus should be a consideration to clinicians when a delay in proper wound healing is encountered postoperatively. Therefore, in the postoperative period, when the wound healing is most active, we recommend avoiding programs that require frequent pulse generator recharges.
