You know lurking is OK and it is not dangerous at all, but it does tend to deprive one of the support they may receive by way of feedback from others. This Forum is just like any other in the ebb and flow of postings and communications. I think a good lot of us have been stricken with a bad case of spring fever, so are out getting vitamin D from the good old sun instead of chained to a computer keyboard.

So..... anyway...... I am one of those chronic pain sufferers on whom my physiatrist tried EVERYTHING to get me into a zone of management regarding this pain, short, that is of doing the SCS implant. You can imagine, I have taken before a great many prescribed things such as Methadone, Methadose, Morphine, Vicodin, Percocet, Lyrica, Neurontin, Valium, Restoril, Ambien, Robaxin, and on and on and on, for YEARS. I just figured they were part of the territory, and I did not feel embarassed about needing to use what was prescribed, because doc was striving to manage my pain. It was absolutely AWFUL, AWFUL, and then there was the bout with depression after I had weaned off of the pain meds courtesy of Librium and Clonidine and others. Gotta tell you that DEPRESSION can take your soul into the deepest darkest place a person never wants to be. I have seen the bottom of that hole and it is frightening!

You, on the other hand are presenting a portrait of valiant effort to make it with a stubborn or uncooperative stim with arcing racing around your body in the wrong places while also taking prescribed pain management meds. Your life experience is precious to share..... precious. Such writings, as you know by lurking are and represent the LIFE BLOOD of this forum, the very sharing of our experiences with one another so we may be lifted up both through responses and through prayers that others utter on our behalf. I have craved and needed both as this path has seemed so steep and scary, so working one step at a time, I have proceeded, carefully along, hoping life would return with glimmers of joy, glimpses of peace, the heady aroma of experience hard won because I was able to do something again [like smell a rose outside on a bush] that pain had prevented.

Coming along you are. If you find your need takes you to the Methadone forum, we will truly understand, although, being here, I'll wager [is that legal?] that every one of us have been medicinally where you are now.

As for me in this house, your name is an object of prayer, and I will often think of you Patti, as I hope your resolution to enslaving pain is just around the corner,
Big ZZ
Mark56