[fstellab]

Hi All,
I am so thankful for finding this site, it looks like a place that I might find some good information and hopefully offer some help.

I was pretty healthy until I reached my mid-fifties, then I started to develop some pretty bad problems. These issues included Central Sleep Apnea, chronic neck pain, chronic lower back pain, type 2 diabetes and moderate neuropathy.

In 2007 I had a SynchroMed II Programmable Infusion Pump implanted. After 2 weeks they had to remove it due to a staph infection. I was in the hospital for next 6 days, I was in extreme pain and no amount of pain meds would control it. The 2 weeks I had the pump were wonderful, so a month later I asked them to put a new pump in. That pain pump worked great for the next 7 years.

Unfortunately, I am having problems with the pump now. I have gone into withdrawal 3 times in as many weeks. More on this with another post in the right forum.

In addition to my problems, my Bride of 40 years is also having difficult pain issues. She has had Rheumatoid arthritis since childhood. She has had her hips replaced 3 times in one hip, and 2 times in the other, plus a shoulder replacement. Currently she has a very painful stress fracture of her right tibia. She cannot get around even with this huge boot they gave her.

All of the above sent me looking for answers, right now I am most concerned about support issues. We need to find day to day help, especially if one of us is hospitalized. Yes, we do have health insurance, but it has been very difficult getting the services we need. This is new ground for us, usually one of us was able to take care of the other.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.