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With the test stimulator, we actually implant a temporary unit, which is no more involved
than a little ... what looks like an IV tube under the skin, leave it in for three days,
and the patient sees if it stops the headaches. If it does, it does so very dramatically,
very quickly. Then, we see them back four days later and they'll tell us whether or
not it worked. The way it's done, it's a medical procedure
performed in the outpatient setting at the hospital. It literally takes about 15 minutes
to do. It's completely painless because the patient has an IV sedative. Once the patient's
asleep with the sedative, it looks like we put a tiny IV tube above each eyebrow and
then two in the back here. Important to note, just like an IV, it's no
further under the skin than this. In other words, nowhere close anything that could be
damaged. There's no incision. The patient goes to sleep for 15 minutes. When they wake
up, they look a little funny. They have some tape here and long little tubes out. To repeat,
very akin to an IV tube, but these little tubes plug in to a little battery box that's
on the outside of the body. Immediately, when they wake up in the recovery
room, there's a rep from the company there that will turn the unit on. What the patient
will feel is this very mild little tingling sensation in the forehead and the back of
the head. Commonly, we might do this on a Friday morning. The patient will go home over
the weekend, and then three days later, come back to my office where we remove the temporary
unit. When we remove it, we basically take the tape
off, and the little IV tube just slides out. It doesn't even need a Band-Aid on it. At
that point, again, they will tell me whether or not it worked. If it did not work, then
quite simply, they're not a candidate for the permanent unit.
If it did work, and in most cases it does, and again works in a very dramatic way where
it stopped their headaches, then we set up and plan a permanent stimulator implant for
a couple of weeks later. One of the beauties of an implanted stimulator is this ability
to test it before we actually do the full implant.
The test is very convincing. It's very persuasive, so that with a high degree of confidence,
we know that when we implant the permanent stimulator, that it is going to work. We know
how well it's going to work because of the test unit.