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Posted 5/22/2012 12:32 PM (GMT 0)
Hi

Im new so forgive

My wife had medtronic neurostimulator implanted in 2011.  After 3 weeks there was a burning sensation in the rctal area.  There were three attempts to reprogram and there was no help for this problem.  as time goes on the pain has increased to the point she is bed ridden.  The Dr who implanted the device says he does not know what the problem is and is not offeing any kind of treatment including any pain meds.  I pulled the med records for the surgery and found he was only able to install one lead instead of the two that was needed.  He did not infm us of this and I am wondering if this is the problem or will this device work with one lead.  Thanks 

Posted 5/22/2012 2:42 PM (GMT 0)
I'm so very sorry your wife is having a problem, maybe contact the medtronic rep to see if they might be of help.
Make an appointment with this doctor and try to get him/her to listen to you and your wife, and if after that you can't get any more help, maybe seek out another doctor that does implanted devises and ask for a second opinion to see if it can be removed or options you have..
Others will come by with better advise, they will come by...many many well wishes to you both and I hope things will improve here
soon for your wife...also we do have many past posting on these that you can read thru, just don't respond to older posts...
Keep us posted as we do care....
Posted 5/22/2012 4:32 PM (GMT 0)
Hi Gary and welcome to the chronic pain forum. I think you need to get a hold of your wife's rep and be sure he is aware the dr only implanted one lead instead of two. What kind of dr is this that your wife is seeing, a pain mgt dr or what. Just because your wife has the unit does not mean she will not need medications, thats wrong. I wish you had found us before your wife had this surgery because we would have told you to grab your wife and run from this dr as fast as you can. Most drs still give their patient meds for BT pain even with the SCS Unit, I have a pain pump and I am given meds for BT pain. You need to find your wife another dr, I am afraid the one she is with is not going to be of any help and from what you are saying he is not going to help her and thats wrong.

He should have been upfront and told you and your wife that he was only able to implant one lead, they are not designed to run off of one lead, at least everyone I know that has one has more than one lead, sounds like the dr did not know what he was doing, another reason to find your wife another dr.

Please keep us posted on how your wife is doing. Take care.....Susie
Posted 5/23/2012 3:14 AM (GMT 0)
Hi Gary, and welcome to you - and your wife. I'm sorry that she is having so many problems with her stim... When they work well they give wonderful relief, but when they cause problems they can be a real nightmare.

The burning pain she is getting - the first thing that springs to mind for me, just from my own experience, is that there may be current leakage from her lead stimulating the nerves to that area and causing the pain. This has happened to me more than once with lead migration. You mentioned attempts to reprogram - but has her Medtronics tech run a diagnostic check on her lead? Has her doctor done any imaging since this rectal pain started?

They can work with one lead - I only had one lead to begin with (and my original unit only had the capacity to take one lead) but it's my feeling that doctors should be implanting units with the capacity for more than one - when I needed a second lead, I also had to have my battery replaced so that I could have that second lead put in. I guess it depends on each individual problem though. That said... Is that the reason why the doctor wasn't able to implant a second lead? I know my doctor recently wanted to adjust my leads to try to get my stim working better for me (mine has caused intense back pain since I fractured my spine last year - due to tissue sensitisation and a little current leakage) and decided just before surgery that he wouldn't be ale to either move the current leads or get a new one in because of the risks.

If I can be of any help, please ask. And I hope your wife finds some relief soon.

Laura
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