Yep, your peeps have certainly come thru for you!
You've been getting very good advice here on this thread!

The only thing I can think of to add at the moment (I am deleriously TIRED, put in another 12 hour day at the office)
But anyway, I agree with your Dr......just hold back a bit and let your body do it's thing first. I think maybe your Rep overwhelmed you with too many program options right up front. There'll be plenty of time for that.
For now I'd just try to keep it as simple as possible and use only a couple of programs that work, even if the coverage isn't giving you all the relief it's capable of. Your bod has been thru ALOT! And you've got pain meds and breakthru meds for this....

To this day, I basically only use one program, because of the simplicity. I found the one that gives the best coverage and fine tune the intensity accordingly. When I go to bed, i turn it way down because the spine pressing on the leads is gonna cause it to give a stronger signal.
Sometimes. I just need to 'give it a rest' and turn the whole contraption OFF for awhile because the constant buzzing gets to me and I get this feeling of wanting to crawl out of my skin......kinda like an anxiety thing.
I still get a slight phantom stimulation even when it's off.

This will all come to you in time. Keep it as simple as possible for now.
Save yourself the stress.

Rest for you, kinda like Pooh, you work too hard as your move approaches. Don't overdo. Pain awaits. Please remain in your skin, you are too valuable to all of us to be inside out.
Mark56

Yep, I've met my limit....this is my last post for the nite!
My eyes have gone BEYOND being blurred and heavy......it's like both eyes have deleriously combined into ONE eye . . .
Good Nite my precious world

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

Thanks, Tara. That was very helpful information. I go in for my 10 day checkup tomorrow so will take in a list of questions I have. I do think that I am not being patient enough with myself...it's actually only been over a week since surgery and I'm already thinking/acting as if I should be doing better and be further along than I actually am.

Thanks for the reminder that I need time to HEAL...I have been too used to pushing myself when in pain, and I'm forgetting that I need to relax for now and give my body a break. I'm going to go mark 6 weeks on the calendar as a reminder that I need to give myself a break for these next 6 weeks or I'll get back into that old pattern of getting impatient with myself and trying to just push on through the pain rather than resting/recuperating.

Hi Fiona!!!!

Hope you are feeling a bit better even now! Tara was so right on about pro-active addressing the programming of your devices. Prepping for the conference in advance with written questions [take the list with you, we nearly forgot mine] that you review with them will be helpful in the extreme, that way questions are not forgotten in the rush of "Oh, this feels so GOOD."

We are so thrilled for you, so thrilled,
Prayers for healing,
Mark56 PJ