Hey, everyone. I've been lying low for a few months, and just came across this discussion. My memory is lousy, but I remember someone was getting a stimulator implant, around the same time as getting the vaccine.

I had an Abbott spinal cord stimulator implant in June of 2017. It was wonderful for the first year. The burning pain in my feet was reduced by 75%. The only medication that had been helping was morphine sulfate contin. I reduced the dosage (big mistake), because the stimulator was helping so much. Year two, I had to have it adjusted by the rep every 3 months. Year 3, it just wasn't doing much.

LastSeptember I had surgery for severe spinal stenosis,, and after recovery, I had the rep recalibrate the stimulator, and it started helping a little, though far from the original 75%. I've been fighting to get the morphine dosage raised back to the pre SCS level, but have only been given a token increase. I'm in the process of finding a way to get a pain pump implant, but the doctor who does it, at OHSU , in Portland, said I need to do a trial of a dorsal root ganglion stimulator first. Yay! Another surgery. But constant pain, at a 5 on a good day, at 8 or 9 on days like today, is a big contributor to the depression and anxiety I've been living with for 20 years.

It's time to let my dog out for her nightly business, and rub lidocaine cream on my feet in bed. I do want to say that I hadn't thought about any possible negative connection between my sfpn and autonomic polyneuropathy and the covid vaccine, which my wife and I are scheduled to have at the end of this month. I'm sure I'll be talking with my therapist about the effect this will have on my mental health at my next session on Wednesday. When you struggle with anxiety disorder, along with depression and PTSD, everything changes. I was never one to worry or to be depressed the first 50 years of my life, so sometimes I'm a stranger to myself.

I hope each of you will stay in touch, so we can be a support team for one another.

Jim

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