Spinal Chord Stimulator implant surgery

[EmmaD2]

Hi there, I'm wondering if anyone has any experience or knowledge of this, I'd just like to see if it will be possible for me to come off my strong pain meds and carry a child.... and i'm running out of child bearing years!

I'm 36, and had Surgery on my back February 2014, but it seems to be taking longer for me to recover than I had predicted. I've been given a spinal chord stimulator implant to help manage the neuropathic pain down my leg that i have constantly. Its coming from my back, but they can't diagnose it after trying everything going in pain management, so this was the last resort. I've managed to come off some of my pain medication and rely on the stimulator more (kind of like a permanent tens machine), and started swimming regularly to strengthen the muscles in my back which were cut through in surgery leaving weakness, aching and lack of muscle strength. The thing is, i will always have the underlying problem of chronic leg pain, and the more i try to strengthen my back with exercise, the worse the leg pain gets, so its all a question of balancing it out, and I'm not sure if i'll ever be able to come off my pain medication completely, not enough for it to be safe in pregnancy. Because as far as I know i can only take paracetamol in pregnancy, and I am on Codeine, Pregablin, and Temgesic at the moment.

Does anyone have any experience/case studies/good news on this subject?

Thank you in advance!
I'm desperate and anxious!

My step-Mum has one and I know it took quite awhile for things to 'settle' down as it is major surgery as you know.
When I was pregnant I came off all meds and after a while sort of got used to the pain, I have chronic back problems with damage to the disc's, muscles and nerves but after coming off all the meds I take very, very few now as I can now 'feel' the pain and know when it intensifies that I need to either rest or seek help ( triggers of paralysis)
What I will say is that living with the pain helped me cope with the pain of child birth.

Ask your consultant what he/she advises because they will know what is safeand good luck.

It's been suggested to me but I have to say I'm not at all keen. However, I'm very interested in what it feels like, what was the surgery like to put it in and how long does it take to be effective?

Please do come and join is on the back pain support thread.

I hope you don't mind me saying that from Feb to sept isn't all that long. What made the doctors act so quickly? Were you private? I only ask because it takes so long to organise anything on the nhs.

Hope you are feeling better with it anyway.

Thanks Tutt, I will be seeing my consultant in a months time so i should take a list of questions with me. I'm not sure i can just come off the meds completely, even with the SCS it doesn't cover the pain completely.

Matildathecat, It is helping with the pain enough to have it, for me anyway, if you're in enough pain, anything is worth a try. Have you had the trial?

This was on the NHS, not private. I think you misunderstood though, I actually had the surgery in February, and i'm still trying to get back to normal still, now (or normal as i know it) It was on the NHS, but i've been waiting for years.

When i was 16 i had a burst prolapsed disc causing the same awful crippling pain down my leg. I was in bed for 6 months, and they operated on me then. It helped for a while, then over the years the leg pain has been coming back gradually, until 10 years ago, when i twisted the wrong way and its been with me like this ever since. I've been under the care of Pain management and Neuro-surgery for years and years, had numerous MRI scans on my back and pelvis, Tried, acupuncture, Osteopathy, Physiotherapy, Had Facet Joint injections, Sacreroliac injections, nerve block injections, to try and single out what's causing the pain but they just can't find out although they think it must be linked to the original operation somehow as i'm getting the same pain. So this is a last resort to try to help deal with the pain, so i had the spinal chord stimulator surgery.

Most people who have had this surgery, have had it later on when they've already had children. I just wondered if i could find some case history of women who have gone on to have children afterwards and what their experiences have been.

Thank you, I will head over to the bad back thread! It seems there are a lot of us! I'll leave this one here though, just incase someone has had the same thing and can help me!

Em :-)

I have no personal experience of this at all, but came across This case report when researching another topic for work (I have absolutely no clinical knowledge but it may be of interest to you and something you can use as start of a discussion with your consultant).

Thanks sleepyhead, it's good to hear someone has gone through it with no problems at least!