Your approach and attitude is precisely what this entire forum bound by threads IS all about. Open inquiry into the unknown as you test the waters.

There is no medical procedure without risk, the foundational reason all providers uniformly require we who consume their services to sign off to paper after paper purporting to document our "informed consent" to the risks of a procedure. Rarely do such signatures hold up to the judicial inquiry into bad practice or mistaken misteps in the work done on the patient, but lawyers being what we are, we try to help people paper themselves with protection in hopes it will hold.

So, back to your quest for knowledge, information, a basis from which to decide. I, too, was VERY full of trepidation regarding still another surgery now that I have been through 29 to restore me and, you know, there was a nagging thought in the back of my mind the "law of averages" kicks in somewhere along the continuum and something could go wrong. Bottom line, I WAS afraid. Pure and simple.

I prayed, I studied, I knew life on meds in my bed was not a life which could alone restore income to my family and at one time we had a RICH income. A Huge motivator was I HURT constantly despite the meds, and it was the meds stupefying effect and sedation effect which rendered me asleep much of this time like my SIL Teri [I misspelled it earlier, she will forgive me]. She is driven to sleep quite a bit by her levels of meds, a coping mechanism and definitely not a vivacious life. I wanted more for me and for my family.

Thus prompted, I took the step of Trial surgery to learn still more whether the therapy of SCS could help me with pain management. You know from reading my posts, it did.

Still, I feel for myself and others who may be thus allowed the definite cinching of the bridle and saddle toward the road to success was on top of my excellent team...... I WAS ALLOWED TO DRIVE THE COMPUTER IN THE ALL IMPORTANT POST PERMANENT IMPLANT SURGERY PROGRAMMING SESSION. I know my pain. No one else does. They only attempt to learn via tireless completion of 1 to 10 scale forms some documented indication of my pain. That is the best medicine has to offer given current technology..... a piece of paper with a 1 to 10 scale completed by the patient.

FOR THIS REASON I asked and was permitted to drive the programming of the computer under the watchful eye of my rep. It was elementarily simple, plus every tweak I MADE to the computer produced immediate results I discerned, and through trial and error of my own I did dial myself in. No tweaks thereafter at all. No crying to the doctor for pain management meds because it does not work for me, and you know the rest. I feel utterly blessed.

Now, lest I lead anyone who reads down a path of pitfalls for the unwary, everyone has to know:
1. SCS is NOT for everyone, thus the careful steps leading up to its utilization on any patient. There are patients just ill suited to the stim.
2. Stim does NOT solve all problems. It is a therapy for pain MANAGEMENT and NOT some panacea cure all; in fact, it cures nothing. Its utilization is intended by the manufacturers and users to confound the brain into wrapt submission not to FEEL/interpret pain signals as pain. For this reason, I have written, the body will still experience pain though the brain which interprets it will be confounded.

The result for me is best understood walking in my shoes- Though I have resumed a good portion of my pre-car wreck and trauma life, this body which contains me is still bedeviled by the pain stimulus. No, my brain does not usually recognize it; however, my body builds up to a point of rest requiring fatigue by day's end greater than I experienced pre-injury. I TIRE.

In this recognition, I have come to know I cannot work as once I did routinely. Monday of this past week, I worked from 9:30am to 12:30am the following morning to deal with issues bedevilling me at the office. I tended to practice in this way before injury just because the "law is a jealous mistress" so they teach in law school. I was overwhelmed with fatigue thereafter, because I had put the body through too much, and by Wednesday, it showed in my bearing and my face to my co-workers. I had overdone. I went home early that day and to bed to catch up on rest. Then I implemented a resolve with my understanding corp President to force me away from the office at a more reasonable end of day time.

While stim has enabled my return to work, I STILL HAVE LIMITATIONS, new limitations to integrate into old well established work patterns. I was ultra-successful as a lawyer in my prior corporate life due, in part, to my strength and work ethic. GET THE JOB DONE. Now the work ethic has to be tempered by bodily limitations since pain is experienced by tbe body although usually I do not sense it.

3. Pain- There will still be pain spikes. Times when the pain breaks through and that GAWSH awful burning of hades impedes my gitalong. When a spike occurs, having no meds, I retire to bed and ramp up the stim to the point it overcomes the pain. Now, such levels of stim WILL produce sensations in the body which one may define as uncomfortable.... but the most creepy side effect thus utilized is paralysis rather than parasthesia. I have to be in bed, because the lower half of my body responds to the ramped up stim by stepping over an edge and I cannot will myself to even walk at those moments.

My Doc is concerned by such strong usage, but I am determined NOT to use pain management meds again. We have agreed together I will use the stim in spike contol mode with due care.... running it down to check on the pain spike to determine whether it has abated so I can safely return to normal usage. Thus far no lasting paralysis side effects have remained once I decrease the stim. No whilte papers exist on my usage in this manner, the reason for my doc's concern. We are making history. I am the guinea pig.

I have to confess even with all of this I feel blessed to be back at my profession.

4. I have deep and abiding faith, and it is this feature of my life which has been with me on this life experiment..... so when people wonder "how can you deal with all of this?" I answer "I am blessed, how about you? Have you not prayed for me? Don't you have faith in the prayers you have lifted on my behalf?"

5. Back to Teri, a double amputee high on the thighs of both lower extremities due to the insidious and gangrenous form RSD can deliver. She had no real choice in those events. Phantom pain still is with her. Since she is whole body RSD now in late stage, she exists on morphine as I indicated well over a year ago posting as she requested in this forum. Seeing what SCS "self programmed" did for me, she inquired into possibilities for herself because she would now do nearly anything to escape the pain.... but it is far too late in her case to have any likelihood of success and she is fragile. So, she revels in my success and preaches to others around her who know RSD there is a potential therapy which MAY help. But remember the distinction in my case over most others is the self programming feature I was allowed..... and I rejoice at having been so allowed.

Sorry this is such a long post, but much needed to be written for realism to be presented. SCS is not pie in the sky. It is serious stuff to be approached carefully by one who is not faint of heart.

I pray this may be of help to you ALT, and the many decisions which lay before you,
Here for you anytime,
Mark56