Hi, I'm new. 59 years old, back pain all my life but I ignored it. After all, doesn't every one have back pain?

5 years ago the pain started getting bad. Doctor finally sent me to a pain specialist. MRI showed it all. Scoliosis, degenerative facet joints, disk, stenosis which was bad enough that I required a lumpectomy to return strength to my right leg.

My pain management Dr says if pain threshold weren't so high, I would have been in earlier. I don't know about that but my teeth can't take anymore.

After PT, shots, Tramadol (the others make me sick), and radio frequency we decided to try SCS. I'm having my trial run starting 01/30/2012. I'm excited, fearful, hopeful and everything else many of you may have been.

I don't have a dramatic story, I just got arthritis and older. I tease my wife and tell her I have higgs boson desease. (gravity, sort of)

I would like to hear about experiences with SCS and Boston scientific. It's my pain management DR's brand of choice. Who am I to argue? I don't know squat.

Did you get that off of one of those "Umpteen Things NOT to Say to Someone in Chronic Pain" lists?

Seriously, that one's a biggie, but welcome to NT anyway. I suffer from "foot in mouth" disease myself!

Yes, you have a middle-age spine; it's part of the penalty we pay for walking upright.

I like the Higgs boson joke/reference; I'll have to remember that one.

Anyhoo, you want the SCS & Pain Pumps forum, along with the Sticky thread at the top of this forum.

From what I've been able to glean, there are a lot of problems (dissatisfied customers/patients) with Boston Scientific, but read/ask on that group.

Doc

Hi ~ I'm sorry you're having so much pain. I can relate. I sure hope the trial for the SCS works for you. Just be sure that you go about your normal routine as much as possible during the trial, so you can get a good assessment of pain relief. When I had the trial, they gave me so many restrictions, that I THOUGHT I was getting lots of pain relief. Then when I had the thing implanted and went back to my normal routine, I got a rude awakening! The pain was still pretty awful. I had the SCS implanted for 6 months -- but due to other problems, I had to have it removed. Mine was the MedTronic. I had no mechanical problems with it.

Best of luck on the trial. PLEASE let us know how it goes, okay?? Take care & God bless. Hugs, Lee

Help me out here.... Did they tell you to restrict activities during the trial, but it was ok to do those things with the implant? That doesn't make sense. I would think they'd either tell you to act normally with the trial, OR to restrict yourself with the actual implant as well. Apples & oranges?

Doc

Hi Doc -- sorry it took so long to reply. They actually told me to RESTRICT a whole lot of my activities during the TRIAL, because they were afraid the leads would move --- I was given a laundry list of things I could NOT do. It basically had me sitting around most of the day, which didn't make alot of sense to me but I did what they told me.

Then when I got the implant, I found that there was NASTY pain just doing minimal things around the house, let alone trying to go back to work! And this was after the healing period too! So I think I got an "idiot" from MedTronic who told me to restrict my activities during the trial. They always send a Rep from the company during the trial and the implant -- and they give you your "orders."

Oh well -- it was an experience! LOL Take care. Hugs, Lee