hi

i just have had the scs implanted a few month ago. now sometimes i experience that my pain is better even without or with minimal stimulation, whereas on other times my pain seems to be worse with the stimulation
it´s somehow weird and hard to describe.
i´m wondering if some of you experience the same things? and if you turn your stimulation of, how long does it take you until your pain returns? this is so different for me, but on the other hand i always had good and bad days even without stimulation

xxx

I have never been willing to turn off my stim just for fear that somehow the switch would not respond when I wanted to turn it on again. One of those unreasonable fears in regard to technology I guess...... but I still remember computers in my car going bad, laptops going bad, and especially video cassette recorders and players eating tape.

SOooooo.......... I do turn my stim WAY down from time to time, just to tell what the effect is producing. I immediately return to the 7 to 8 out of 10 pain that bedevilled me when on pain management meds. The pain is still there for me, clear and convincing evidence; however, I am able to completely control said pain by manipulating my stim remote and selecting between programs and signal strength along with using my trusty cushion. I am no longer taking any pain management medication at all.

I hope this helps, and do EXPECT that others will chime in here..... traipsing along as we do from time to time.

Caring for you,
Mark56

Yes, I have similar issues of what you describe!

My SCS indeed covers the horrid burning pain in both legs.... BUT then I started getting terrible BACKspasms! I never had back spasms before this!

To this day (I've had my unit for over a year now) I still don't quite understand what is going on. It appears in my case that my back acts up when my unit is on - as tho the stimulation is somehow 'irritating' the nerves.

I've been trying to go without it on for periods of time to see if my back settles down when it's not in use. It seems as tho this is true for me....except for days like today (very demanding and busy day) - my back is REALLY giving me fits and it can't be due to my SCS cuz I've had it off for 3 days now.
Like you said, there are bound to be the good days....and then the bad days come along as well.

It's hard to really know what to expect since we each have a unique situation. None of us have the same exact issues.
We just 'compare notes' and continue to support one another.

Do you have a cervical or lumbar stim?

Stick around - we'll all put our heads together and I'm sure we'll have the universe figured out soon

Caring
Rae

Rae just on what you said about having the pain when the stim is on. I had mine reprogrammed last week and those three programmes give me awful spasms in my back that I just cant use them. Are you due to have a tweaking session soon? maybe it would help , dunno just a thought!

hi

i also know those back spasms, its somehow a weird feeling, and its not necessarily correlated to too high voltage
but for me sometimes the pain in my foot is even greater when the stim is on, but this only lasts for a minute (or a very short time) so it isnt a great problem, but somehow weird. and i always want to know why things are the way they are...

xxx