New Member - Chronic Pain from Thoracotomy
 

Hello

My name is Morgan and I have joined this site to get some answers and information for my wife Andrea and myself. She had a thoracotomy three years ago and has been suffering from chronic pain in her left frong ever since.

She is taking all the meds, and yesterday she had the Medtronics Spinal Cord Implant trial surgery. I have read more horror stories than successes.

Any help in direction for proper Forums, other information, etc., would be helpful.

Thank you

Morgan & Andrea,

Hello and welcome to NeuroTalk. Great to see you have come to be with us. You will find a great number of caring, supporting members here willing to help each other as they can.

Check this link out:

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...lant#post87418

Again welcome, looking forward to seeing you around.

Darlene:hug:

Welcome Morgan and Andrea... Glad to have you w/us, but sorry for all Andrea is going through. take care.

Hi, Morgan! :Wave-Hello: Welcome to NeuroTalk!

I see that Darlene has offered you a starting place. I'll add that we have a search engine in the blue toolbar above that may help you locate more relevant discussions. Feel free to join in anywhere, and I hope you'll find some useful info here. :)

Hello,
What did she have the Thoracotomy for?

do you think she has RSD/CRPS?, it can come about after surgery or even a minor injury.
Swelling , burning, extreme sensitivity, skin/color changes...
our RSD forum link-
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum21.html

some members there have SCS implant or trials with them.

I am not sure if she has RSD. There is no skin discoloroation, just the severe pain which feels like a burning sensation and sensitive to the touch.

I forgot to add, she had Thoracotomy to remove empyema (sp) from Plural lining. She got pneumonia in Nov 2004 that got infected and fluid (pleurisy) built up and it was removed. It came right back, turned into puss, and then thoracotomy to remove it.

She has been in constant pain ever since. She has had numerous steroid nerve blocks from a Pain Management doctor that referred her to UCLA to have Rhisiotomy. She had two of those and they did not work. She just had Spinal Cord Stimulator on Monday. At first she felt it was working, but now it is not.

Her doctor that did the Rhisiotomy at UCLA recommends Brain Stimulation to block pain signal from going to brain. I can't seem to find any articles or information on that.

Does anyone know anything?

Please help.

something here might help you- Brain Stimulation Google search

http://www.google.com/search?q=Brain...ient=firefox-a