Hi

Fiona, sorry I am so late to reply. I just wanted to add somethings from my experience since I have had mine for awhile. I agree with you that getting to the right settings is very frustrating until you are actually healed. Even after that healing is over it will keep changing on you as you get more active. I needed higher stimulation the more active I am so it makes sense that we need to be programmed often

And yes , I am also Boston Sci as well, even though I had medtronic for my trial lol. Also, the way to find your right settings is really just trial and error I always just experiment turning it up and down to see the best relief I get, some days I get more relief at one setting then the next day it could change. I also have found that in different situations I have to turn it down like when we go to the movie theatre or if I am sitting in a chair while people are rolling heavy carts by me (happens at school), and I also have to turn it down when I was on my wii fit board because the machine kept saying I was moving around too much even though I was perfectly still! My rep gave me 3 different settings and I like to have the options

also I have to turn it very low to lay down and go to sleep because sometimes it feels jarring. I also make sure that when my settings are set they do not come on too high as that can be jarring to me as well. Of course I am talking about my experience when the stim was working right

The other thing is charging. I also have the belt and have to use it now but I also used to love the sticky things instead. The tips I have learned for charging are be careful what you sit on to charge, my couch does not work because of the fabric. Also the best way for me is to lie on my side with my stim facing up. Since my stim is in the right side of my lower back I just lay on the left side and this way it won't overheat because it has to get air to it! Then I just pop a couple movies in and charge. If you do have trouble charging you should talk to your rep because mine was helpful in showing me better ways to do it! Also, spend as much time as needed when you get to be reprogrammed I have actually spend hours at the doctor office to get programmed right and it took about 3 hours but its better then just settling for a program so you can get go home (I used to do that in the beginning and I thought I was wasting their time!). I hope that helps too, I know Mark56 and Rrae already explained that stuff to you but I wanted to offer my suggestions as well. I know the recovery process is frustrating at times but I hope you get things all figured out and feel better very soon, take care!

Tara