September 15 2008, while doing an exercise,after having the stim for only 5 months, I was thrown to the floor and was in electric shock for about 20 minutes. When I went to the hospital, it was also found that the stimulator had also caused a heart attack. I could not move below my waist for about 6 days. A bioengineer, flew in from San Diego, where in front of 8 witnesses, he used his remote, and found out that the stim was working on its own. He called it dysfunctional. To stop the stim, he had to use magnets to shut the whole system down. I continue to have medical probs, and nerve damage. Lawyers don't want it, because you can't sue a medical manufacturer. My day to get a lawyer is coming to an end.

ONE help : I have been in touch with Jon Bristow on KGO radio. He is very interested in getting to the truth. He needs facts, bullets. He is there for us. To put in your input and hopefully stop the docs from putting it in without more information,email
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Please help to get it out there. To reach me please feel free to contact me at **

Thanks.

Boy I am glad To see some real post about how these SCS really work for people with nerve damage in the upper part of our body's arms, hands, wrist ect.

In the past 2 days I have read on this and another forum a lot about SCS nightmares. It seams that these work well on folks with lower back, hips,and leg pain. When it comes to arms, hands, wrist, shoulders with nerve pain is when I have read most not all but upwards of 95% had theirs removed.

My PM Dr has been trying to had sell me on having one of these implanted even before he ever looked at me. I had a Dr.visit last Tuesday and he again tried again to hard sell me on this after seeing him for 6 months. I told him no so he wants to send me to the Mayo for a 2nd opinion. My nerve pain just keeps getting worse and spreading up my arm into my back. My pain on my meds stays around 7+ to 9+ by the end of the day.

My PM Dr. has told me that I have the worst case of crpsII in a whole arm, hand, wrist, shoulder area that he has ever seen. As I have told him I do not have a very good feeling about someone messing around my spine in the nerve area since this all comes from a Dr. cutting my nerve by mistake in the first place.I ask my Dr. some questions about the SCS and I saw that he was getting p.o. with me. I have a voice in the back of my head that keeps telling me to not do this. I have to go with my voice it has never failed me yet.

I feel very bad for all these folks that have had this done and are now in more pain then before. I hope over time that there pain from these SCS will go away. It is sad to try to re-leave the main pain only to end up with more unexpected unnecessary pain.

This is my 2 cents on this subject.

This is the main reason my wife will not consider a SCS because she has upper limb RSD that has spread to her lower limbs. I too have read several unpleasant issues with scs and upper limb RSD.

I wish I could share more happier news, Iam all about happy, ya know.. BUT SCS it is a big negative for me..First you get excited for pain coping tool/intervention then once you have surgery, recover only to find..mine did spread ..just as much RSD pain as before and now painful back where I am deeply wired.. leads go the length of of my body internally to my shoulder blades inside my spinal column with my box living in my hip fleshy spot..

Sorry, I would send happy vibes if I had em..

Hugz, Kathy

RSD is a strange condition in that some procedures work for some not others. Catch 22 also fits this disease in so many ways. My wife made up her mind years ago (after doing extensive reading on RSD) to avoid evasive procedures. She did except physical therapy and ketamine infusions. She avoided surgeries, blocks etc.. Her thinking is the disease will spread most likely so let it take its course without speeding the process up with temporary fixes. There is a logic in this thinking, but I'm sure for others it's not. Many doctors did not like my wife's thinking on this and disregarded her as having the pain in her mind instead, even though she showed most physical symptoms of RSD and a severely crippled right arm and hand. By not allowing doctors in the early stage of her RSD to poke and prod, cut and stick etc. my dear wife was severely neglected by doctors. However, over time the disease has spread but I think she may have been worse off if evasive treatments took place.

Here is my thought.

I went to my hand Dr. 4 months back to see about having joint surgery to my thumb on my left hand. She said that now that I have been DX with crpsII she feels that this is to evasive and will cause my crpsII to spread over to that hand.

Now having a SCS implanted is evasive as it gets as far as I am concerned. But my PM Dr. is more then willing to do this surgery without a second thought. If one surgery that would make my life better for me as far as getting the left hand thumb joint replaced should not be done why is it O.K. to do the SCS surgery.

I will take my time and changes with not doing the SCS implant because once done anything that needs to be looked at by a MRI cannot be done so you are left with having more unneeded surgery's therefore causing more spreading of the rsd/crps. I hope this is making sense to everyone.

I am going to go to the Mayo Clinic to see what other options I have to help with my nerve pain.

I had a SCS put in 5-6 months ago for my RSD in arm. Did the test period for a week, It helped a little bit but shocked me everytime I moved .

I told doc about it he said that will go away when permanenetly implanted , I really didnt want to go through with it but since Im On Work Comp I had to .

After 2-3 weeks of having the Perm in, I went to Doc office and Medtronics woman was there to adjust the settings , Because it Was still shocking me with movement , So she strapped the Reciever part to my lowe rback and started to adjust the thing.

Make long story short she electricuted me for 10-15 seconds I couldnt move and was locked up , All I could do was scream Turn the (Profanity ) thing Off ! Said it 3-4 times before she got it turned off .

Once she did get it off I fell to the ground , She ran out of the office never to return or be seen again . I compare it to be shocked by a stun gun , though never have been but seen people who have . From that day on I told Doc Work Comp and anyone else I will never turn that thing back on and it hasnt been back on .

Now I been waiting for Work Comp Approval to remove , They agrreed but sai dI Need to see a psych first which I did then waited another month or so , Then they said I need to see a NEW Doc Which I did .

And Here i Sit about 5-6 months later waiting for approval to remove this thing . Also I have not mentioned the Battery is extremely uncomfortable it feels like it wants to push right out of my skin and you can see it and feel it through the skin .
Now I will decide NOT Work Comp what I will and wont do , Dont care about them not paying or their threats , If I dont Like something it aint gonna happen !!!!!!