Penny,
I won't even try to put percentages here... the numbers you get depend on who you talk to, but what I see in the patient community for SCS results is not very good. (Obviously, I see a population that is skewed to the negative... nobody comes to me to tell me that they are doing great.)
There is a substantial chance that the SCS won't have the desired effect. Even if it does... there is a substantial chance that the benefit will be temporary and it will lose it's effectiveness over many months or a couple of years.
Once you have it in, taking it out is no small task. The SCS is a symptom masker... you are not addressing the source of the problem, you are masking the symptoms (often by giving yourself other symptoms.) Not addressing the problems leaves the opportunity for advancing nerve damage or continued degeneration and worsening of a structural problems. This worsening may come with losing options that you have now, but will not be possible if things get worse.
I've had many clients who have had SCS removed... most of them only partial removal... leaving the leads in their back and into the spinal canal. Fortunately for most of them, they are removing them because they have ultimately had a surgery that made the SCS unnecessary.
Many patients have a good result with SCS.... I would never presume to know what you should do. I will suggest that you should discover what all of your options are before you take such a huge step that cannot be undone. There are risks associated with SCS, just as there are risks associated with any other option. However, incurring the risks associated with SCS in an effort to mask the symptoms, if there are options that may improve or resolve the configuration that is the source of the symptoms... to me... seems like putting the cart before the horse.
Mark
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