Hello,
I am soon to be joining the ranks of SCS patients later today and found some valuable real life information on here for which I am grateful for. Many questions that you have are often not thought of until you are leaving and on your way to your car in the parking lot. It is a lot of information to digest during the office visit which is usually rushed for time as the physician usually have quite busy schedules. That is fine as long as the physician has strong support staff to help with patient education and even then it is a lot to process during a short amount of time. Both my wife and myself are registered nurses with advanced degrees and we both left the initial office visit regarding the placement of the SCS with our heads spinning.
I fell off a ladder seven years ago and damaged L4-L5 which is 80% of the problems area for low back pain. Concervative therapy for three years then two microdiscectomies and finally a lumbar discectomy with lumbar fusion. Last surgery was successful and stablized my spine and allowed me to wean down to 30% of the narcotic load that I was on at the time of surgery (Mar 09). Been at the same 30% of drug for pain control now for four months so we are hoping the SCS allows me to wean futher or even all together from the current pain meds.
Had to go on disability about a year ago...I traveled all over the country visiting Universities and large community practices working with Oncology clinical trials. My dream job..Would love to be able to return to work so I am keeping my fingers crossed.
I will post my experiences on here regularly to hopefully help other patient reseaching this as well...

Jerry