This pump serves as alternative to addictive pain pills

A few months ago, Cynthia Brouillette slipped on a patch of ice."I kind of went up in the air and I totally came down on my elbow," Brouillette said.Days later, Dr. James Baker was operating on Brouillette at Saint Elizabeth Surgery Center in Crestview Hills, fixing a fracture in her left arm."They had to put in, like, screws and a plate, that type of thing," Brouillette said."That can be a very painful operation afterward," Baker said.But thanks to a small electronic pump, Brouillette recovered from surgery at her home in Villa Hills without popping any powerful pills."I didn't feel a thing," she said. "I felt no pain and I felt very lucky to have that pump."The device is called an ambIT pump. Before a surgery, anesthesiologists like Brion Roman at Saint Elizabeth Surgery Center connect the pump to a bag filled with a non-addictive numbing agent. Using an ultrasound machine and what he calls a non-intrusive catheter, Roman finds nerves that cause pain during and after surgery and applies a steady flow of regional anesthesia."It gives you sort of an upstream block to the pain signals that will be going toward your brain, and you don't experience that pain," Baker said.Baker pointed out the nerve blocks created by an ambIT pump are not always 100 percent effective, but even when they don't work perfectly, he said the pump cuts down on the amount of narcotics a patients needs.Patients who get an ambIT pump take it home with them for a few days."It's extremely simple," Michael Jordan said. "Everything sits in a little fanny pack."Jordan runs Cincinnati-based GP Medical, a company that distributes ambIT pumps to medical facilities in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and West Virginia -- states reeling from overdoses caused by pain-killers."Why give somebody the taste of the opioids, especially somebody that's high-risk?" Jordan asked.AmbIT pump advocates include Dr. John Larkin, at St. Elizabeth. He credits technology with making the pump safe for patients to use at home and for giving patients a new choice when it comes to pain relief."They get a continuous block for a couple days," Larkin said. "We see them by the third day. By the third day, they don't need that, and then they're on their way."That's what happened to Brouillette, who wouldn't have another surgery without an ambIT pump."My goodness, a choice between that and taking some kind of medication that could cause you to become addicted, I mean, there's no contest," Brouillette said.Larkin advises patients facing an operation involving an orthopedic problem, general surgery and even plastic surgery -- especially post-cancer breast reconstruction -- to talk to their doctor about options for pain control.The cost of an ambIT pump can be difficult to pin down. Jordan said he believes most insurance companies cover a portion of the cost. He said the amount a patient pays depends on the contract that hospitals have with specific insurance companies. He added the cost of an ambIT pump is generally included in the total cost of a procedure, not as an individual item.