St. Jude spinal cord stimulator, no pain relief

Sorry to hear your pain is still there. I totally understand it's no fun. I myself is experiencing hip pain where the battery is. And my two says it makes no sense.

Hi,

I had a St. Jude SCS put in on Jan 5 and I haven't had much luck with mine either. I have the Burst, the one where you do not feel any of the vibration.  I first had the Trial done and it worked great!

I had my Stimulator turned on the day after my implant.  I've also had mine reprogrammed multiple times with no relief.  I've also had multiple steroid injections which helped for 1-2 weeks.  I now have two bulging discs in my cervical spine, one is severe and the other is moderate.  I just recently was out on Lyrica for my pain.  I still have sacroilliac pain and horrible bilateral hip pain, with the right hip pain radiating down to my knee.  My Pain Doctor has been very good at trying to help my pain, but we are at the point of, not too much else to do.

I'm starting to think about having the SCS removed.  I know this was a long story, I just want you to know you are not alone! 

I hope you find relief!

I sure hope you get relief. I does sound like its possible that your condition has had a physical change perhaps more of a sever e issue than when you first were looking at doing a NS. I know that healing from the implant surgery impedes the NS signal's affctiveness, but you should be healed by now. They had me turn my NS off for 3 days to let everything reset and I just had it reprogrammed and turned back on late today. We concluded that I was getting over stimulation. It feels better now so we''l see shortly how things go.Thanks for the info. One last question, do you have leads or paddle type leads implanted?

I had the St. Jude Spinal Cord Stimulator implanted in August after, what I thought, was a successful trial.  However, I feel NO better since having that done.  In fact, now I occasionally get shocks in my back.  When I try to turn up my device even a little, I get bad tingles in my back and legs.  I had the small leads in the trial but the paddle in the surgery.  I think the trial is too short - 6 days was NOT long enough to truly assess if it works.  And part of the trial was recovering from the implantation pain.  I have been reprogammed 3 times.  2 of those times the reps had issues with the equipment and had to swap their programmers or my programmer out - which doesn't give me huge confidence in the product.  Plus, the people who program it are MARKETERS - not healthcare professionals.  They just want to sell you the product.  Patient care is clearly not their focus.  I had to meet them at the hospital to get programmed but since they have NO facility, they were programming me in the LOBBY in front of people, sitting on a bench.  This was the worst mistake I ever made, next to the lumbar fusion that caused this pain in the first place.

Whoa. Major break check. I had my procedure last Monday. I was scheduled to go for a follow up in the beginning of February but I called due to “Adverse Effects”.  I see the surgeon and the programmer tomorrow. Make that later today. They’ve been cagey the entire way but I was sent home with a plastic shopping bag full of stuff I can’t use and I’m Pain I cannot even describe. I have sharp pains, muscle spasms, can’t sleep, can’t eat. Swallowing is hard sometimes and when I can I feel like I have indigestion. I’m still feeling the crps along with surgery, a foreign body inside me and no one will talk to me. 😔 I pray I get some answers tomorrow. The trial went well. Better than without. Now I have bones that were removed and it’s all just so much. I’m drowning. What, if anything, do you advise I ask at my appointment? So sorry you’re not doing well, Don. 

i had my St Jude (now called ABBOTT) in about March 2017. I have neuropathic pain in my lower left leg following 6 surgeries...anyway it works really well for me but the initial device was implanted in my abdomen just slightly above my waist which really did inhibit my movement so my surgeon moved it but I dont have much fat to play with and its only been moved about 1/2 inch.........