A carefully applied jolt of electricity to the brain provided the first pain-free moments for 79-year-old Elaine Pettigrew since her jaw started hurting four years ago. The procedure performed recently at Stanford Hospital was one of just a few of its kind done in the world and the first performed on the West Coast.

Heit (left) relied on radio-controlled imaging technology during surgery to help him find the spot on the brain where he should apply stimulation. With the electrodes in their precise position, a tiny current will eliminate the chronic jaw pain that has sharply limited Elaine Pettigrew's quality of life.

"This was a last resort," said Glen Pettigrew, Elaine Pettigrew's son. She had tried heavy doses of painkillers and other surgical procedures to ease the constant pain that had sharply limited her quality of life. "When the others didn't work I started to lose a little hope," he said.

Pettigrew's troubles began four years ago when a doctor damaged a nerve in her jaw during an unrelated oral surgery. Since then, Pettigrew has tried a variety of medications and other treatments to block the pain. "I've had nerve blocks and I don't know how many different things," she said.

Many effective pain medications leave a person groggy, but Pettigrew turned down any drugs that impacted her ability to function. "I drive a car every day and I refused to take something that would affect my driving," she said, despite pain so easily triggered that the vibration from talking was enough to set it off.

Pettigrew said her primary care physician persistently tried new strategies to approach the problem. "He didn't give up on me and kept sending me for new treatments," Pettigrew said.

Eventually, this led her to Gary Heit, MD, PhD, assistant professor of neurosurgery. Heit saw Pettigrew as a perfect candidate for a new technique that uses brain stimulation to ease pain.

The procedure involves a paddle-shaped configuration of four electrodes normally used to stimulate the spinal cord. Heit placed the stimulator on the part of Pettigrew's brain that controls jaw movement. He then calibrated the device to supply enough current to block pain, but not enough to cause her jaw to move.

Heit said nobody knows for sure why stimulating the movement region impacts pain. A nearby brain region processes sensations from the jaw such as touch or heat -- this region would become active if Pettigrew touched her jaw and was active whenever her jaw ached. Crosstalk between the sensory and movement regions keeps these two areas coordinated. Heit suspects that stimulating the movement region sends a signal both to the jaw and to the sensory region of the brain. Through this process, he believes pain signals from the jaw are blocked, but more study is needed to understand how.

Heit will later run a wire from the stimulator in Pettigrew's brain to a generator implanted in her upper chest. Pettigrew will be able to flip the device on by placing a magnet over her chest.

With her debilitating pain finally relieved, Pettigrew hopes to attend her grandson's wedding and visit her kids. And she intends to talk -- a lot. "Won't they regret that," Pettigrew said.