OT: Spinal cord stimulator experiences anyone?

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 17, 2022 5:08 pm

The actual device won't be turned on until this weekend after we get a chance to have the incision sites get a bit less annoying.

glad to know it went well.

do you turn on the machine or is that done remotely?

Glad everything went well for you. Good you managed to get home before the nasty weather. We dodged the bad weather this time around. Got a little cold rain early this morning and a few snow flurries later in the morning. Missouri gets a lot of nasty ice storms. I remember getting ice storms just before the snows started wen I lived there.

zonker wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 17, 2022 5:42 pm

do you turn on the machine or is that done remotely?

Unclear as to exactly how it gets turned on. It might be remote or it might be with the phone call this weekend they just tell me how to do the "secret handshake" thing.

After it gets powered on and at the desired settings then it is in my control though. I can fiddle with it as needed just like I did with the trial thing. In fact the controller is the same kind of controller I used during the trial but I will have other "modes" to choose from. Which makes me wonder if it is a secret handshake kind of thing. Apparently expect to have a lot of phone calls with the device techs the first couple or 3 weeks...and they want to be there with first doctor post op appt in a month.

What is totally amazing to me is how the battery pack (under my skin in my right iliac crest area) gets recharged as the battery runs down. It's more of a blue tooth recharging. All I have to do it get it close and let it pair up and it recharges and takes a little over an hour to go from near zero charge to full charge. As to how often it depends on how much I end up using the higher strength zapping. With normal use they say about every 3 days.
The battery pack is about the size of 2 half dollars stacked together. Much smaller than I envisioned. It's not nearly as noticeable as I originally thought it would be.

Right now the most discomfort is up around T12 area where the incision was made and some bone chipped away to fit the "paddles" inside the epidural space. I got sutures holding that incision closed...so big enough to need sutures.

Will be a learning experience for sure.

It is recommend that I NOT drive unless I turn the device totally off. If I move a bit weird the zapping can feel a bit intense and they are afraid it would be distracting while driving. Otherwise the device is always on....screwing up my brain cell receptors into not realizing I hurt. Helluva gadget.
Though I already experienced the zapping sensation (with the trial study)....usually when changing position significantly like laying down in bed....it's not a horrible sensation. Just feels like a bit of a Tens unit tingling thing.

Remains to be seen just how much it might help my other lower back pain from all the other stuff but my main goal was the pelvic/hip pain relief so that I could walk with a normal to semi normal gait and not hurt like hell.
Any other relief that I might get will just be some icing on the cake....if I get it.

6 months before I an expect everything to be solid inside me so can't go wild and crazy with some movements.
Don't want to pull the wires out of place by accident. Placement is millimeters critical.
I will be a good girl as much as it pains me.

Take those pain pills on time, even if you don't feel pain yet.
It sounds counter-intuitive; but it really works.
Anticipatory analgesia--to head off the first ouchie.
I set alarms on my phone the first day or two--just to take meds exactly on time.
Feel free to be as lazy as you like.

chunkyfrog wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 17, 2022 7:47 pm

Take those pain pills on time, even if you don't feel pain yet.
It sounds counter-intuitive; but it really works.
Anticipatory analgesia--to head off the first ouchie.

I know, I know...
Works just like dealing with apnea events....easier to prevent than it is to try to fix after the fact.
With regular dosing...you keep the blood levels more constant and then they work better.

I just took....the one Norco (hydrocodeine) and the Flexeril and a couple of small dose tylenol (running a low grade temp and feeling yucky with it).
And yes I know about muscle relaxants and apneas but at this point sleep is critical and my machine will auto adjust if it needs to.
Doubt it will be an every night thing for the muscle relaxants but for first night....I need sleep and I know it will help me sleep.

Here's a good night cyber-kiss for you. Put it under your pillow,
and dream of frolicking pug puppies in green grass and dandelions.

Just saw this... glad that it's over and done! Hope you managed to sleep well and that today is a bit more comfortable for you.

Congratulations! And I hope when it can be turned on, you'll feel great relief!

Quick update.

Weekend came and went and big surprise...no phone call (as promised) to help me get it turned on.
That's okay. It was one of those sort of secret button pushing things which was really quite plainly explained in the manual...so sometimes it does pay to read the damn manuals.

I got it turned on yesterday afternoon. Easy peasy. Already knew how to set the level of stimulation...it's easy... you increase it until you feel the tingling and then back off to where you don't feel the tingling.
And it can vary a bit as I move around a bit. All this was to be expected as I had same thing happen during the trial if I moved much. Noticed mainly when going through the position changes needed to lay down in bed.

Too soon to know much about pain relief since there is still a lot of discomfort just from the surgery incisions and stuff done to get the wires in place.
I did get 7 1/2 hours of very decent (for me anyway) sleep last night and a quick glance at the sleep report showed AHI 0.2 and that's with a pain pill and muscle relaxer pill right before bedtime.
So I am not so sure that pain pills and muscle relaxers are all that detrimental to apnea therapy. Haven't seen the detailed pressure graphs yet. Not in any rush. It's not like I can change it anyway.
Most of my AHI (when elevated) has always been SWJ anyway.

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 21, 2022 10:29 am

Too soon to know much about pain relief since there is still a lot of discomfort just from the surgery incisions and stuff done to get the wires in place.
I did get 7 1/2 hours of very decent (for me anyway) sleep last night and a quick glance at the sleep report showed AHI 0.2 and that's with a pain pill and muscle relaxer pill right before bedtime.
So I am not so sure that pain pills and muscle relaxers are all that detrimental to apnea therapy. Haven't seen the detailed pressure graphs yet. Not in any rush. It's not like I can change it anyway.
Most of my AHI (when elevated) has always been SWJ anyway.

OH! well let's hope this trend continues.

good luck!

Pugsy wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 21, 2022 10:29 am

. . .

So I am not so sure that pain pills and muscle relaxers are all that detrimental to apnea therapy. Haven't seen the detailed pressure graphs yet. Not in any rush. It's not like I can change it anyway.
Most of my AHI (when elevated) has always been SWJ anyway.

Lately, doctors and others have become aware of their part in the addiction epidemic.
Dosage is being adjusted to weight, and hopefully other factors.
--you do not automatically get the OSFA (one size fits all) dose popular in the past.
A good thing, in my opinion.
Carefully titrating analgesia helps fight addiction.

Congratulations on the decent sleep! I hope as you continue to heal from the procedure you'll feel less and less pain. Fingers crossed.

Good for you! Things sound very promising so far. Just having a good sleep is a terrific sign of improvement. As you heal up I think you will feel better and better!

pugsy, how did things go today?

zonker wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 22, 2022 4:45 pm

pugsy, how did things go today?

Nothing exciting to report. Actual surgery site discomfort is slowly abating but at times it feels like a stab in the back. Like when sitting and I end up putting more pressure on the wound site than I meant to.

Too soon to know much of anything else.

Didn't sleep quite as well last night in terms of solid sleep. I remember lots of wake ups for some unknown reason I couldn't ever put my finger on.

I think maybe that the walking pain might be reduced...I think. It's hard to evaluate well because of the incision pain still yet.

Weather horrible today....cold, ice, freezing rain, sleet...so all I really did was feed the horses, plug in horse water heater and truck engine block heater. That was the extent of anything outside that I did.

Figured out how to charger the controller as well as the battery that is implanted under the skin. Near as I can tell based on battery discharge I will probably need to recharge maybe every 4 days or so. Takes about an hour or so each. Depends on how much of a discharge is going on.
There is a way to charge the implanted battery and still have me walk around and do stuff....you put the charger close to the battery and it will tell you if you are close enough or tell you "not a good connection...reposition device".

Side note....still no phone call from the tech to tell me how to turn it on.