Hello Sandy
I really sorry your having to deal with this level of pain.
I have 4 blown disc’s that were cadged up during surgery back in 2016 and now after 5 different surgeons have said the window for a second surgery has closed I’m left in level 9 debilitating pain.
The Pain Dr I’m seeing now put me in the scs trial in which the Leeds or wires are kept on the outside.
It was unsuccessful changing my pain level but it truly depends on your pain level.
My Dr though the scs along with meds would help, it ma with you.

I’m making it day to day… one day at a time! When you know the name of your stimulator, repost the question with that info and see if you get a greater response. My old Medtronic unit was useful for the last 17 years, the leads somehow migrated out of my spinal canal in 2019, and it took until 2031 for them to figure it out. My unit was not MRI friendly, which made it harder to figure out the problem. I finally had to tell the pain management doctor to order a CT myelogram after he discovered it on the fluoroscopy during an ablation procedure. I loved mine at first. Then I started on the opioids, and only used it for breakthrough pain. When I came off the pain medication, I started relying on it to relieve my pain, and it was making me anxious. Back when the did mine they actually did a psychological exam of 400 questions to calculate your tolerance for the thumping it would make in my body, and they found that I would need to take something for anxiety. Benzodiazepines now are on the CDC’s chop block again… especially if you are on opioids. I take such a small dose that it doesn’t show up in blood or urine tests! Yet they still try to wean me off of it. Recently I had trouble getting the order called in, and was without it for 5 days. By day 3 I was a wreak. I couldn’t think straight, making a decision was out of the question, and I was easily offended! I just remember hanging up on someone that said it would be ok… I hung up and shouted it is NOT ok! Then I went into the bathroom and cried and screamed!
One of the questions you need to ask is if your unit will be creating this thumping, buzzing etc in your body. Have you ever used a TENS unit? It is an internal TENS unit… if you did not tolerate that, you can not live with a scs. If that was a good treatment for you, then do the trial for the SCS.
Write questions to ask the doctor, and write his answers down so you can refer back to them frequently before making your decision. It is a toss up in this community whether to do it or not. I have a teammate, Mike2017, I believe is his screen name. Look him up. He actually works for one of the companies that makes one of the SCS units, had the trial, decided to go forward with it, and major problems with his, but persevered and last I knew was happy with his decision. I credit mine with getting me out of bed and being to function again in the early years. In the later years I hated it. Now that they are MRI friendly, it is easier to diagnose the problems with them. With the amount of opioids I was on the last 17 years, I did not find it useful enough to even keep it charged.
Stay in touch with me, I will help you as much as I can. I will not replace mine with a new unit at this point, but I do remain an advocate for trying them at least. It can always be removed, or not used if you find it doesn’t help.

Blessings

Cheryll

I had a Nevro SCS implant. For me it helped a little at first but not very long. I had it removed after 3 years. They promised me 80 percent pain relief it never got anywhere near that. I have heard some people get alot of relief from it but unfortunately that's not my story

Good morning
As I’m sure you have been told by you Dr. it has different degrees of success with everyone, but I agreed to the trial and it had absolutely no effect on my pain level.
I became acquainted with another patient of my pain Dr. and she went through the trial with no pain relief either.

Hello my scs only works for my nerve sciatic pain in my legs but not my lower chronic back pain. I have had mine fitted eleven years now.