Hi everyone, I am back with a fantastic update. After charging all day today and part of the day yesterday I am happy to say that my stim is finally up and working again! I have great coverage in both legs I am still having pain in my back but I think it is because incisions are still healing but I am just thankful to have it on and working in my legs again! Its working better than it was before I went into surgery I am really thankful and so happy I went through this surgery because it was definitely worth it! I think it is important for me to reiterate that even though I had to have 3 surgeries it was all worth it because I am finally getting some relief and its way better than the "relief" we get with pain meds! I probably will need to get re-programmed though after I heal up more since I am not getting much coverage in my back but I am just happy my legs are BOTH all tingling instead of being in horrible pain! And we got Gigi to sleep all night last night finally and we had to keep her in bed with us but it was the first time all 3 of us have slept since Christmas lol. My mom is feeling better too so I am also thankful for that Hope you are all having a good weekend, I had to share this good news!! Now that I am getting better I am actually looking forward to starting this new semester on Monday! Thanks for all the help, support, and encouragement, I really appreciate it! Take care Tara

What a joy it is to turn to your thread and see that your stim is both on and FUNCTIONING WELL! May your healing continue and soreness abate. May you begin, albeit carefully, your semester, and may things do nothing but improve for you and Jerry and Gigi everyday!!!!

Prayin for you, dear friend,
Mark56

That's great news ... good news for me too that it CAN actually help back pain as my Doctor said it would only help my butt and leg pain.

Yay!

I think I'm going to do a cheeky tomorrow and ring my Surgeon's Secretary up and see if she knows of a date for me at all. Or do you think that would seem too pushy?

Saffy, I think it would be fine if you called to check on things. You have to stay on top of things and I found that out the hard way when things were not getting done. You are their patient and they are there to help you so I think its perfectly fine to keep tabs on them! Good luck and I hope you get some news soon I have heard doctors say that sometimes the stim does not take away the pain in the lower back but in my case when things are working right it helps the pain in my legs and back. take care

Tara- Way to go with the stim! I hope it [the incision related pain] settles down soon for you, and besides which, you need to be able to get out and enjoy life a bit with Jerry. I, too, use my unit even as I sleep, just turning it down a bit because I notice that when I lie down, the intensity of signal increases automatically, like as if a change of posture itself affects the signal; and besides which, remember, I have gone totally off of meds for pain, so the stim is my only control and I am glad of it.

Saffy- I agree wholeheartedly with Tara that a call to the doc's office inquiring about the progress with your date is quite allright. I am guilty of doing it, and then one day, they called me with the date! What a relief!

Prayin,
Mark56

Well, today I woke up in a horrible amount of pain where my incision is The whole left side of my back is spasming really bad and of course the stim is not covering that kind of pain. It has not been this bad in awhile and my pain med is not helping, so I left a message with my pain doctor nurse to get refill of the other stuff that was helping. I hope they do that because I am miserable I also started my classes today and the pain is so bad again that I can't sit by the computer very long. I guess I need to cut back on my activities again and try to rest today. This is so frustrating

Well, I have to have my stim on constantly and when I am sleeping in order to help with the leg pain and last night I was able to sleep better! I definitely noticed they changed my settings/programs so I am going to have to get reprogrammed soon. When I turn it up higher (trying to get it into my back area) it actually just creates more soreness and pain in my incision areas so I am still taking pain meds but only one and that is to help with those pains, the stim is working great for my legs! I was even able to do housework (no vacuuming) and cook dinner last night. Tomorrow it is Jerry's day off so he is taking me out since we weren't able to go out for so long and I am so excited to try to walk and not have to use the chair!