I have had sufferd back pain for over 20 years and had have several major back surgeries. The past six years I have suffered with chronic back pain. Was placed into pain management. After many injections, it was suggested that I should consider a trial stimulator. THe trail went well and pain level wnet down. Was than scheduled and had my implant done back in Sept. Now several months after I have pain in the area if the implant I cant stand anything touching it as it causes alot of pain, I cant not sleep on my left and if I do I wake in pain and my left leg is numb. The doctors want to try and place th implant in deeper, and I dont know what I should do. I am thinking about going to local ER and just having it taken out. Has anyone had this problems?"

Welcome to NT!
I'm sorry about this pain that has plagued you for so long.
How well does your SCS cover your pain?
I doubt that ER will remove the implant. They would probably have the procedure scheduled and then you wouldn't have the high expense of the ER charges. Have you lost weight since your implant was done? (pointed question I know ) Reason I ask is because this happened to me. I had been on a bad medication that caused me to gain about 40 lbs. After my implant I didn't take that med anymore and began to lose the weight. This is when I noticed the unit began 'moving' to the surface of my skin and I thought the battery was working it's way OUT! Well, that wasn't the case. It was because of losing weight. The extra 'flesh' was melting away. The site began to get pretty sensitive. Since then, tho, I have become used to it and it's no bother now.

The reason I asked if your unit covers your pain is because if it does, I wouldn't want to get rid of it. If your Dr wants to make a deeper pocket for it to sit in, then that probably wouldn't be that big of a deal. It'll just be tender from the surgery for awhile. Hopefully he wouldn't put it in too deep because you might have a hard time making a connection with your charger when you go to charge the battery.

There are these padded adhesives (I think 'Johnson & Johnson' make them). You place them over the tender part and it'll cushion it from the outside world.

Stick around! There's plenty of support and caring people here. If you want to start a thread of your own down below, just exit out of this dialogue and click on the 'New Thread' option at the upper left of the screen.

It's great to have you here!

Caring,
Rae

Thanks for the advice. No I have not lost weight. Like I stated it just started to get very sensitive. I cant stand to have even a t-shirt touch it. AS for the pain is not covering as well as it had in the begining. I have had it reprogramed twice already. The unit I have when the battery dies I need to have them cut me open again and replace the batteries. My insurance would not cover the more expensive unit. I am scheduled to have it moved deeper in on Monday but I am truly nerverous I am sorry I went this far.
Again thanks for your support and the information you supplied

Ok, I see where you're at with this. I can understand why you feel uncomfortable about this. I was hoping that your SCS was doing a pretty good job of covering your pain.

Down below is where the active posting is (you and I are communicating up in the "sticky's" and not many people see this). Anyway, there are quite a few Scs'ers down there who have had this problem - where their unit seems to lose it's 'Pazzazz' (?) Sometimes it's the battery getting weaker. Other times it just takes more tweak sessions. Then there are the instances where it's the scar tissue to blame. Our friend Jackie had this problem and her Dr said that the scar tissue continues to change it's form and sometimes it can 'encase' the leads/electrodes, which stifles the stimulation effect. Jackie has had her unit for a couple of years and is still having scar tissue issues. Her Dr feels confident that he can get better stimulation if he tweaks around. This is why it is necessary to be tweaked every so often. Others don't seem to have this problem tho.

Since you've got the non-rechargable unit, I'm not sure what to think. You haven't had it in very long so I wouldn't think that the battery could be dying already. HOWEVER Jackie had to have her battery changed out only a few months after her implant. She had a dud of a battery. So, I guess this does happen, but I hope it's not the case with you.

Do you feel confident in your Dr? If he sounds confident in making some adjustments on you, then maybe it's worth a go. I wonder if there's a way he could check the status of your battery while he's in there.

I can certainly understand why you feel tempted to just throw in the towel tho. If it's that sensitive and painful, that would be hard to deal with on a longterm basis.

Please keep us informed of how your appointment goes on Monday. I'm curious to know what doc will have to say. We could probably learn from your experience.

I wish you well for Monday and thereafter. I really hope this will work out for you.

Rae

I don't have the scs, but if you're still having problems with the sensitivity, and haven't had the surgery to get it implanted deeper, you may want to try the lidocaine patches. I used them for my back to help with some pain issues and though it didn't seem to work for the deeper pain, it did make the surface skin numb and may help you with your problem. Just a thought! Hope this helps!

Welcome to the forum!

Thank you SO much for your testimony! There are people who come here looking for information from other members who have the pain pump, so I know this will be very helpful!
Congrats on your very successful implant and a great doctor also!
I will include some links to other pumpster's testimonies:

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/post1028850-5.html


Pain Pump member references:

Here is the testimony of Bobinjeffmo's pain pump:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/post701979-14.html

Here are some post references, both good and bad, to hopefully give you a realistic array of experiences:

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread144925.html

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...945#post841945

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/post778075-7.html

Another thing you can do is use the "Search" feature near the top of the page in the bar that runs across the screen (3rd option from right). Type in 'pain pump' and it will bring up prior posts and discussions on these.

It would be great if you would start a thread of your own down below where the active posting is. Right now we are up in the 'stickie' section and not many people will see this.
Simply exit out of this dialogue and when you first get to the SCS/PP forum you will notice a 'New Thread' tag at the top left side of the screen.

You've had a life-changing experience and I hope others can read about it too!

It's great to have you here at NT! Feel free to ask questions if you need help finding your way around or for anything else we can help you with. I'm sure we'll have a lot to learn from YOU as well!

Caring,
Rae

Hope Im in the right place .....Hi guys, I had SCS surgery in December 11.my CRPS is in my left foot.I am still having severe pain around the surgery sites.Cant do much of anything.Still on crutches and in wheelchair.I would love to hear of fellow scs implant people.Im in UK and had my scs surgery at The Walton Centre .my neuro nurse check up is in August...any advice etc

I had my first one put in and it lasted 1 year and was not getting all areas. Decided to have more leads ( I thought) put in on Dec 1,2011. A man not from Boston Scientific but from St. Jude was there. Says you are getting a whole new model. They had already started they anethesia, I wasn't going too far. Woke up with the battery pack right at my waist line. Noone came back to tell me how to use, charge, anything. January I sat down in a chair and had to move the internal box with my bare hands to sit back. Got to the point it started shocking me if it moved out of it cubby hole. Then it wouldn't shut off and started shocking me. I had it removed on May 14. My heart stopped in the recovery room 2 times due to the shocking it had done to my system. Good luck to all they work for I am happy you are blessed to have them work. Just not for me.

Hello!
Oh My! To think that some places treat their patients this way! How awful. I'm so sorry you had this experience and that you were not well-informed at all regarding the manufacturer of the unit they 'surprised' you with and then placing the battery in such an inconvenient area.

Sounds like some negligence was involved in this also. What a raw deal.
I hope you are recovered from all of this by now.

Thank you for sharing. Definitely an opener!

Rae

So in my voting I selected both "Worked well" and "Worked somewhat" which obviously contradict - so I added, "I'll tell ya about it in a post"!

Basically, my wiz-bang, high-tech Medtronic ActiveStim system is only 19 days in and at first it was ROCKING with wonderful performance and pain relief - then it started "stuttering" (well, it was doing it from the beginning but it has gotten MUCH worse) where it would sometimes push full power then it would just mysteriously drop, then back up, then down, up-down-up....etc. I'm not moving, not changing my breathing, nothing....it just stutters. Now at almost 3 weeks I see my Rep tomorrow morning and I'm not letting him off the hook this time...he's either going to call the pulse-generator defective and start whatever process he needs to get this fully analysed (or whatever) or he's going to have a GOOD explanation as to why this is happening. With it getting worse I really suspect the PGen is really bad and I'm looking at another surgery. I'll do it in a heartbeat because of the relief I got but...I'm not very amused.