Emily, in a word, I am delighted! The SCS has worked in my specific situation so as to re-enable my entry into the workplace, something for which I have prepared with great diligence as I fully want to support my family once more.

My career was stripped away with the pain I endured after a serious car wreck and I now feel fully capable of making that step back into an office environment. We are now in final negotiations regarding a position which will most assuredly provide the proof whether my body is up to it........ but I have been very much into the hardening of my body, mind, and spirit toward reaching the goal. Spoke with my physiatrist/pain doc yesterday and he was ecstatic at how I present myself and says basically "you on your own initiative have done the work necessary to harden yourself in preparation for work!" He was a smilin as we ended the appointment.

I know I am only one example of a patient on the continuum of folks who have been there done that, so you plot my experience far to the side of successful implant and there will be others with experiences who fall at various places on the continuum, all of the way to the far end of unsuccessful and have to go through removal of the system. GREAT importance is found in the efficacy of the TRIAL implant which SHOULD last a week as it does here on the far west side of the pond- while I understand in Ireland, Trial occurs for as much as a 24 hour period. In my mind, due to the NHS so much emphasis is placed on minimizing expense that Trial is NOT allowed to remain effective for sufficient time to determine whether it is truly effective. Fight for a longer TRIAL if you can. The proof is in the TRIAL, not in the rapid permanent implant of the NHS system.

CARING and CONCERNED from Colorado,
Mark56