I think I am going to break down and chance getting an SCS. My RSD is left knee and below. I have been through several sympathetic blocks with limited success and am using a TENS unit in order to return to work without taking narcotics. However, I still hurt a lot and have the TENS unit so high that when I take the patches off at the end of my shift, I have actual electrical burns, triggering yet more flaring. My whole left leg looks like I have been attacked with a large postage stamp!
Am totally scared...have put this off because I wanted to exhaust all options and am petrified that it will spread. The leg is bad enough, spread might be the straw that broke my psychological back. Since the area is (relatively) limited and all low (as opposed to the experience that I have read from others who have had them for full body or neck problems), do I have less chance of spread and long term difficulties after it's implanted? How long until I can get back to work? (I'm a nurse in an ICU, so it's physical, but am doing it now despite problems with pain) Are the burns on my legs making me flare? The welts and redness remains for a couple of weeks and the texture of the skin is rough and itching like crazy despite antihistamines, and every topical thing under the sun.