I had a Medtronics spinal cord stimulator implant put in over 3 years ago now because of RSD in both my arms. The surgery was a success with regards to the RSD, I had great luck with the Medtronics people, but the wires themselves caused me great pain in my back (it felt like a stake had been put in my back) and caused me horrible nausea and vomitting. After about 9 months and twice going in and attempting to reposition the wires (the idea was that perhaps it was sitting on a nerve root that was causing this nausea/pain), we finally had to take it out for my safety. Upon removing the wires, the pain eventually went away in my back, but the nausea has remained ever since 24 hours/7 days. They have tried every family of nausea medicine. I have been checked out by GI specialists as well because there are also some gastrointestinal symptoms that have started at the same time and have never left. The type of nausea it is is motion sickness type of nausea. And the best they can figure my spinal cord has just been "irritated" for some reason... and they don't see it ever going away. They just keep trying new medicines. But I would be anxious to hear from anyone who had or has this problem as a result of a spinal stimulator implant. I have found one study describing my results exactly, but it does not have any good information on what to do about it at this point for my case... it just advises to take it out in these cases... which we have done.

Currently my RSD has come back as well. Luckily, the time I did have the stimulator turned on did help seem to "reset" it, and when it came back it so far has not come back with the fierceness it had the first time so I have been maintainable on medicine.

So I would love to hear from anyone with any similar post-surgical symptoms.

Thanks so much. And I am amazed to see so many RSD people posting online. I think that is the problem with this illness. It is so easy to just go into yourself and let time pass without any socializing at all.