Hi Meg,

It's great to have you here! You will find that this place houses a lot of wonderful people who aren't afraid to share experiences with the SCS....good and bad. So, welcome!!

As far as post op pain, I did have a lot. I stayed two nights in the hospital, but it was more because I became very nauseated with the pain meds that they gave me once I woke up from surgery. The night of surgery I found that I could only take Ibu and Tylenol without getting really nauseated, but of course, they didn't really seem to touch the pain. I think if I were able to continue with the pain meds, it might have been a lot different for me.

About 2 weeks after surgery, I started getting these sharp pains in my side. It felt like someone was stabbing me with a sharp knife in my ribs. I remember one morning I got up and the sharp pain brought me to my knees and had a hard time regaining my breath afterwards. I went to Urgent Care (of course it happened on the weekend) and they did x-rays and tests and as far as they could see nothing was wrong. So that Monday, I called my doctor and she said the pain could be from having the stimulator on too high. The muscles are still recovering from the surgery and if the stimulator is on too high it aggrevates the muscles thus causing pain. I took her advice and lowered it and didn't have the sharp pains anymore. I still was very sore but I could live with that....it wasn't dropping me to my knees and making it hard to breath. I was initially off work for 3 weeks but had to take an additional week off and started that 5th week as half days so make sure you give your body time to heal!

I also had problems with finding the right program at first. I think I had it reprogrammed every week for the first few months. I'd have it programmed and the next morning I'd wake up and it was off again. I knew it wasn't the leads moving because I had the paddle implanted. It's been 6 months since my implant and my doctor and I have finally found a program that seems to work. I have the ability to set it differently for each leg so if for some reason my right leg needs more "juice", I can accomodate that. I can tell you it was very frustrating at first! Luckily, my doctor was very patient with me. Of course, she didn't have a choice because I didn't go through all this to be brushed aside and was not going to give up until we had it right!!

Since you've only had the implant for about a week and a half, the twinges (or lack there of) might be from inflammation?? Or the frenquency is set too slow where you don't really feel it but it still would be working??? Also, posture might play a part as well. I know that I can feel the difference when I'm sitting straight or if I'm hunched over my computer. My incision area gets sore if I don't sit up straight.

Good luck on your re-programming on Tuesday. Don't be afraid to take as much time as you need so they get it right. I'm glad I did and didn't "settle" for earlier programs because now I'm golfing and getting control back in my life!! Just make sure you also give your body the time it needs to heal. The human body is remarkable in what it can do but if you push too hard, it will only set you back! At the beginning, I felt like it was one step forward and two steps back until I realized that giving myself time to heal was the most important way in getting control of my life back; however, I was never really good at patience!!!