Hello. I have severe chronic nerve pain due to a failed back surgery from 11 years ago. After spending 8 "lost" years on morphine and hydrocodone, I graduated from Mayo's 3-week pain rehabilitation program. That, without doubt, was the best decision I've made regarding managing my chronic pain. Now the only medication I take for pain is Lyrica. The pain is still here every day and often it's bad.

I continue to look for "solutions" that will relieve more of the pain. I no longer expect to find a magic bullet, but only to reduce the pain incrementally by a combination of several things: Lyrica, chiropractor, physical therapy, gentle yoga, etc.

Last August I did back-to-back trials of 2 spinal cord stimulators: Nevro's HF10 followed by Boston Scientific. The Nevro HF10 trial was a bust. It really didn't help at all. The Boston Scientific trial was done immediately after Nevro's and was done with the Nevro leads still in place The Boston Scientific trial provided some relief but I really couldn't say it improved my pain by 50% so I chose to not have it implanted at that time.

I am now going to repeat the Boston Scientific trial with their leads. I don't know if this will make a difference and will produce better results but I'll soon find out.

Before I had the 2 trials last August, I did a lot of research and selected Nevro's HF10 first, in part because of discussions on this Mayo Clinic site. The message I hope to share with readers is this: be hopeful but don't be disappointed if the results of any SCS trial are less than hoped for. The truth is, there are some patients who are not helped by SCS. I wish everyone who is trialing a SCS the best of luck and good success.

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