Advice for Spinal Cord Stimulation

[k8_298]

Hi,
I was hoping someone may be able to help and give me some advice. I had a horse riding accident 20 years ago and damaged my L5 and coccyx. As a result I now have bad coccyx pain and I find it painful to sit for more than a few minutes. I’m not on any pain medication,I just live with the pain every day. I am considering doing a scs trial and I have just read about the Senza and it sounds like the best on the market. Has anyone with coccyx pain tried scs and if so how did you find it. Also after having the permanent implant how long did it take until you could go back to work? the recovery period looks pretty scary.
Thanks in advance

[Maria]

I had episodes of bad coccyx pain prior to my first back surgery but then I had horrible coccyx pain after my 2nd discectomy failed (L4) though for some reason a few months after this surgery an MRI showed I had scar tissue at the S1 nerve root besides rebulging discs at L5 and L4.

Anyway for years I couldn't sit at all hardly. Besides having horrible coccyx pain I also had a deep burning pain in my glutes, my thighs, my calves and in the soles of my feet for years post failed surgery. I went on Elavil in '93 to help take the edge off the neuropathies and then in '98 I started taking Neurontin for the neuropathies.

The coccyx pain finally calmed down somewhere around 2001/02 when I started epidural steroid injections and started taking Methadone.

Now I rarely have that pain unless I sit too long but at least now I can sit an hour and sometimes 2 but still must move around a bit. But that certainly beats hardly being able to stand to sit to drive the street a short distance and feeling that pain every waking second.

I never considered a pain pump or scs because when I finally did start taking an oral opioid medication I have gotten by on a 10mg dose/day but I truly think the ESIs helped me a great deal (got them over a 10 year period of time about 3- 4x/year). Because the low dose opioid medication helped me SCS or a Pain Pump was not considered (per Pain Management protocol). I would not even trust a physician that would consider something more invasive without exhausting the more conservative routes first.

I know that pain must be pretty brutal. Good luck with whatever you do to alleviate although I'd try the conservative routes first before considering an implant. Maria