Chronic pain / neurostimulator trial

Well I am new to Healing Well......my story seems to be like a lot of story's but I will give an overview.
I had my first neck surgery in October 2006, the surgery went very well and stopped my pain. In November 2009 I started have pain again, after testing they found that I had another heriaded disc I think c-5,c-6 was the first and c-4,c-5 was the second. Well after my second neck surgery March 2010 I was still having pain down the side and back of my left arm. I was referred to the Pain Management center in September 2010. I have done 3 injections in the back of my neck and 2 in the sympathetic nerve in the front of my neck. Needless to say these injections did nothing for my pain. They did a ctmylogram and found that I have bone spurs and nerve damage. Now May 2012 I have had a trial Dorcell Collum stimulator put in. It seems to be working for the most part but I find that I still have to take the pain meds in order to sleep.
My question is has anyone had this problem with the stimulator trial?

Ok so I had the neurostimulator put in on July 3. Two days ago, they said that my spinal canal wasn't big enough for them to put a lead in for my arm pain. They did however put two in for my neck and shoulder pain. Anyway I woke up from surgery with excruciating pain in my left arm, even a sheet on it hurt severely. I was told that they tried for an hour to get the lead in my neck for the arm pain. Now I can't move my arm and the pain is unbearable. My question is has anyone ever heard of this happening before. Is there any way to release this pain and regain the use of my arm?

Hi Tina,

A similar thing happened to me last year when I had a lead replaced...also because my spinal canal made for such a tight fit. I had intense pain on the table while they were trying to get the lead into place (all my SCS surgeries have been done with me awake) and over the few days after I had increasing pain and weakness in my leg - and at one stage total lack of movement - on that side. I did have to have a lot of scar tissue removed because it was a lead replacement - but my doctor felt it likely that the pain and weakness was due to severe nerve root bruising.

My leg has never quite come back to what it was before that surgery, but pretty close. I have severe pain in both legs anyway, plus motor and proprioceptive issues, so it's hard to know how long it took, but I would guess maybe 3-4 months? What has your doctor/surgeon said?

Best of luck - and please keep us informed.

Laura