This is my wife's story about Chronic Back Pain and how she gained relief from the never ending pain that was ruining her life.

She went from Doctor to Doctor trying to find some relief from the pain in her lower back and right knee. Every Doctor she saw, prescribed pain medications and muscle relaxants. Nothing seemed to alleviate the pain. Over the next two years, she went from mild pain relievers, such as aspirin, massive doses of Ibuprofen and Motrin , weak opioids, such as codeine, and strong opioids, such as morphine, and all the narcotic pain medicines including a patch that she wore on her back. My wife was slowly becoming drug dependent because of the pain. She had seen what drug addiction had done to her nephew and she did not want to be in that situation. She had gotten to the point, that she stated, " If I have to live like this for the rest of my life, I do not want to live"! She had no quality of life at all. I eventually had to leave my full-time employment and work just part-time in order to be at home to care for her. She wasn't able to get in or out of bed, use the bathroom, do menial household chores or practically anything! We even had to rent a hospital bed for her to sleep in to relieve the pressure of laying on her back.

During the next year, she was evaluated by three (3) different neuro-surgeons and back specialists, two (2) pain management specialists and a chiropractor. All the surgeons diagnosed her condition as two (2) Prolapsed Discs, and Neuropathy. The prognosis was the same, from all three surgeons; surgery was NOT an option, because of the condition of her back and spinal column. They all stated that surgery would possibly leave her worse than her condition was already.

On one of the visits to her pain management Doctor, she had asked him if there was anything at all that could help her with the pain and to get off of all the narcotics that she was on. The Doctor said that there was a device called a neuro-stimulator that she might be a candidate for. For some patients it would work and for some it would not. He even said that some patients could not get used to the way the device felt and asked for it to be removed. She said, " WHEN can I try it?" The neurostimulation system is typically implanted in a two-stage procedure, separated by a trial screening period lasting approximately 1 to 10 days. Stage 1 involves implantation of a lead for trial screening, and Stage 2 involves implantation of the complete neurostimulation

• 1
• 2
• next page >>

---

Add your voice

Know something about Living with chronic pain?
We want to hear your view. Write now!