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Sharon's back, take 4, or so.

SanDiegoCJ

SanDiegoCJ

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Well, the spinal fusion she had a while back fixed some of it, but she was still in pain. They tried an external nerve stimulator to see if it worked before doing an implant.
The stimulator helped a bunch so they scheduled surgery. She got the implant last Thursday. Surgery at 9:30am, home by 1:30pm. She insisted we stop at Burger King's
drive through as she was starving. :laughing: She was a "hurtin unit" Thursday through Saturday. She's improving each day and she got out of bed this morning without help.
The stimulator is at a low setting now until the follow up on 8/18, so it's not doing the full stim yet. Incision pics.
20240811_114239.jpg
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What type/brand of stimulator? My wife had chronic back/leg pain issues from scoliosis and has had rods in her back since her late 20's (she's 55). Her pain management dr did the trial and then implanted a Boston Scientific one a couple yrs ago. It took a bit of trial and error to get the right settings, but overall it was helping.

Unfortunately, about 6 months later she went though 13 hrs of surgery to take out the existing rods, break all the fusions, shave vertebrae and put in new rods to fuse from C2 to T1 to reshape her spine to a natural curve and fix her posture. She went from being 5'3" back to her normal height of 5'6" and fixed the tilt that had developed in her hip.
Due to the extensive work they had to remove the stimulator and we are still fighting with insurance as the said the stimulator was "experimental" and claim we need to pay the $10k bill.
 
giles45shop said:
What type/brand of stimulator? My wife had chronic back/leg pain issues from scoliosis and has had rods in her back since her late 20's (she's 55). Her pain management dr did the trial and then implanted a Boston Scientific one a couple yrs ago. It took a bit of trial and error to get the right settings, but overall it was helping.

Unfortunately, about 6 months later she went though 13 hrs of surgery to take out the existing rods, break all the fusions, shave vertebrae and put in new rods to fuse from C2 to T1 to reshape her spine to a natural curve and fix her posture. She went from being 5'3" back to her normal height of 5'6" and fixed the tilt that had developed in her hip.
Due to the extensive work they had to remove the stimulator and we are still fighting with insurance as the said the stimulator was "experimental" and claim we need to pay the $10k bill.
Click to expand...
It's Medtronic and her Medicare insurance is covering it. The Medtronic rep will be at the follow up on 8/18 and reset the programing on the implant. It has a remote control which is basically a cell phone with a special program. The implant is rechargeable through the skin with a pad you can strap on every couple of days.
 
giles45shop said:
What type/brand of stimulator? My wife had chronic back/leg pain issues from scoliosis and has had rods in her back since her late 20's (she's 55). Her pain management dr did the trial and then implanted a Boston Scientific one a couple yrs ago. It took a bit of trial and error to get the right settings, but overall it was helping.

Unfortunately, about 6 months later she went though 13 hrs of surgery to take out the existing rods, break all the fusions, shave vertebrae and put in new rods to fuse from C2 to T1 to reshape her spine to a natural curve and fix her posture. She went from being 5'3" back to her normal height of 5'6" and fixed the tilt that had developed in her hip.
Due to the extensive work they had to remove the stimulator and we are still fighting with insurance as the said the stimulator was "experimental" and claim we need to pay the $10k bill.
Click to expand...
Holy shit, that's a lot to go through.

I have scoliosis also. Three curves in my spine, one in my neck. I was supposed to get the rods surgery when I was 14yrs old but my stepmother and mother fought over who's insurance was going to pay for it, and I never had it. I've been told I would have been up to 2in taller if my spine was straight.

I hope she gets the stim back.
 
SanDiegoCJ said:
It's Medtronic and her Medicare insurance is covering it. The Medtronic rep will be at the follow up on 8/18 and reset the programing on the implant. It has a remote control which is basically a cell phone with a special program. The implant is rechargeable through the skin with a pad you can strap on every couple of days.
Click to expand...
Sounds very similar to the one my wife had w/ regards to the remote and charging. It took a month or so to get the program fine tuned. The rep would meet us at the Dr office and the she and the Doc would get feedback from my wife and then make adjustments and then follow up in a week or so to see how it was working. According to the rep this is pretty common, so just be prepared that it could take a bit of time to get it adjusted . They also had a couple programs she could switch between. There was also some adjusting due to the battery draw. One of the original programs seemed like it was depleting the battery faster than they expected. That was an issue because the battery has a finite number of recharge cycles.
 
Crash said:
Holy shit, that's a lot to go through.

I have scoliosis also. Three curves in my spine, one in my neck. I was supposed to get the rods surgery when I was 14yrs old but my stepmother and mother fought over who's insurance was going to pay for it, and I never had it. I've been told I would have been up to 2in taller if my spine was straight.

I hope she gets the stim back.
Click to expand...
She was diagnosed as a teenager, and they put her in a brace, but it was her Freshman year of HS and so there was a stigma wearing it and she didn't do it as much as she should. This is actually her third set of rods. Her first surgeon did a shifty job and 2 yrs after surgery she was getting a popping noise in her neck which turned out to be the rods being loose and a lack of fusion. The next surgeon ripped out all the old rods and put in new. That fusion took and she was good for 20+ yrs, but her neck kept curving above that fusion and she started looking like one of those little old ladies with their head bent forward.

The third surgeon did an amazing job and had told her she would likely be so much better after surgery that she would not need the e-stim. She's 11 months post-op and doing really well and so far pain has been negligible.
 
giles45shop said:
Sounds very similar to the one my wife had w/ regards to the remote and charging. It took a month or so to get the program fine tuned. The rep would meet us at the Dr office and the she and the Doc would get feedback from my wife and then make adjustments and then follow up in a week or so to see how it was working. According to the rep this is pretty common, so just be prepared that it could take a bit of time to get it adjusted . They also had a couple programs she could switch between. There was also some adjusting due to the battery draw. One of the original programs seemed like it was depleting the battery faster than they expected. That was an issue because the battery has a finite number of recharge cycles.
Click to expand...
Yup, sounds exactly like what the rep told us before and after the surgery.
 
good luck with recovery

so you feel living in Idaho vs SoCal changed the pain level? temps humidity all that
 
Very good thoughts sent for the recovery and the stim unit success.
 
fordguy said:
good luck with recovery

so you feel living in Idaho vs SoCal changed the pain level? temps humidity all that
Click to expand...
My pain levels got MUCH better when I moved to the high and dry desert from the coast.

The house I was in had a mudflow under it and never, ever dried out. That house made everyone's bones hurt.

Now we are only in pain when the weather changes, and my god does that hurt the bones.
 
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