A Trial for the Implantation of Spinal Nerve Stimulator

I am back in bad pain again, sometimes unbearable pain, and not enough pain medication to cover it.  

Yesterday I finished the one week trial for the spinal nerve stimulator (NS) - a fancy TENS machine inserted in the epidural space of the spine - and I now have to wait 3 weeks until I can get the permanent version implanted.  The trial was very successful from my point of view.  I now no longer have to be in unbearable pain from my spine.  All I have to do when the pain gets bad is turn up the NS and risk getting buzzes when I move.  The buzz is from the NS and in theory, I should not be feeling them if I have the balance between the pain and the strength of the NS right, however I found that I had to turn the machine up high when the pain got unbearable, thus the buzzing.  A small price to pay for relief from really bad pain - the buzzing is much more preferable.  

I had to undergo a trial, despite the fact that I knew I would respond to it - as I have responded well to TENS machines in the past - because funding is not available without a trial. Medical insurance will only pay for the device, worth up to $35,000, if a trial has a been performed. Fair enough, as I would hate to be funding one of these only to find it didn’t work.  It does happen, as a friend told me; her step son tried it and it failed to relieve his pain. 

I will undergo surgery on the 13th of next month, and wires will be threaded up my spine from about L1 to T8, and the wires connected to a small metal control box implanted into the muscle of my buttock ( see    https://www.google.com.au/search?q=medtronic+nerve+stimulator&rlz=1C9BKJA_enAU643AU644&oq=medtronic+nerve+stimulator&aqs=chrome..69i57.10562j0j7&hl=en-GB&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=nRd86-EAzVXMqM:      ) for a picture of the implanted device.  This is very new technology and I can even undergo an MRI with it installed.  Previously I would not have been able to have an MRI with this device implanted as it would have been impossible to go into the MRI room (can not go into an MRI room if you are wearing or have implanted an magnetic metal).  I will have an external control like a pager which I will use to control the amplitude, pulse, and rate of the electrical buzzing which will cancel out my pain.  

It will not get rid of the pain nor will it fix my spinal condition in any way.  If I stop using it, as I have stopped the trial version, the pain returns as if it had never stopped.  The problem still remains a problem.

I am not even sure that it will reduce the amount of narcotics that I am taking.  Currently without the NS the narcotics are inadequate for the level of pain I have.  With the NS, I am aware of the reason I started taking narcotics: severe pain from rheumatoid arthritis especially in hands, hips and shoulders, lupus, gut, feet, and non healing broken bones.  And of course the doctors are not aware that I am taking extra medication that I am not declaring.  When the pain becomes unbearable, I take some of my secret supply.  Not inexhaustible, of course, but it will do me until I get the NS, thank goodness.