@smithki 3 lower lumbar back surgeries with rods & pins being the last one on 5/27/25. The pain that I went to the ortho about originally was for an excruciating "cold" pain & numbness in my right outer thigh, from my hip to my knee that had been going on & intensifying for approximately 2 years. The ortho was convinced that the nerve was compressed & PLIF surgery would fix it. Now a year later & absolutely no relief in my hip, but added numbness in the pad of my foot, my ortho surgeon has said there is nothing else he can do & was sent to a Pain Specialist. I feel like I am being "pushed" to do a trial with an Abbott SCS.

I have asked my ortho surgeon on numerous occasions to do a mri to see what is wrong. They do an x-ray of my spine every time I go that shows the surgery hardware is doing exactly what it was intended to do. BUT!!! It has YET to fix my pain!

I went to the pain specialist yesterday, & he just kept saying that this is what will help. That he has talked with my surgeon & this is what he is recommending. . . I "argued" with the specialist for probably 30 minutes (lol!), but I want to KNOW how this is going to help the pain that no one seems to care about! He DID say that he would order an mri if I just REALLY wanted one, but he was confident that it wouldn't show anything. (and I began to worry that if I insisted on an mri that they would word it so that my insurance wouldn't pay for it!) Plus they say that regardless of what is causing my pain, the SCS will help. So, I finally agreed that I would at least do the psych evaluation & talk to the Abbott rep.

I got home & started researching the Abbott device & found that there are several lawsuits against these companies INCLUDING Abbott models Proclaim & Eterna, alleging that the company "failed to warn patients about device malfunctions that cause severe electric shocks, burns, nerve damage, and lead migration that forced victims to undergo painful revision or removal surgeries." (Drugwatch.com) THEN goes on to cite "High-profile cases - such as Furia v. Abbott Laboratories and Tuttle v. Abbott - allege that defective Eterna and Proclaim models caused severe complications like bladder incontinence, paralysis, and excruciating pain."

So I asked the rep about lawsuits, & at first she said that it was ONLY OTHER companies, not Abbott. So, I sent her a link to the article. . . HOURS later (& she had been responding within a couple of minutes!) she replies with "With anything in healthcare, I'm not surprised to see individual lawsuits, but there have been no class action lawsuits brought to my attention regarding these generators."

So, I'm even MORE skeptical!!! Any help would be appreciated!