Pain pump, I have one, how about one for you?

I'm surprised, (not arguing), but I have one lung. Lost the other to chemo and hospital pneumonia. The other has COPD. All that happened before the pump was put in. I had to be infection free for 12 months before I could have the pump surgery. They check my oxygen saturation like they check everyone's but they don't watch my lung function. My pump guy is a neurosurgeon and a researcher. Extremely brilliant guy. I"ll ask him next time I go for an oil change. Good luck with your stimulator.

Sorry to hear this. I was given a spinal injection with dilaudid before I got the pimp to make sure that was the right drug for me. 1.39 mg. is too low. I began at 3.6 and now I'm closer to 4 mg. Plus .9 mgs. that I can give myself in 10 doses over 24 hours, .09 per dose. Find another doctor. I'm not sure if the starting dose is determined by the oral or patch dose we were recieving before the pump. I do know that raising the dose too much can make the pump worse than useless leaving you in more pain than ever. Best wishes.

I've been offered it for unrelenting pain after two spinal fusions at L4L5 (2nd successful we think). Sounds too good to be true. ANY AND ALL COMMENTS APPRECIATED. Thanks so much.. I'm 65 and pain has taken over my life. Nerve pain not the issue.

Thank you for the information. My 24 year old daughter is considering. Would you be willing to share what it looks like? I have not been able to find pictures of someone who has had one implanted. She’s very tall and thin. Afraid it’s too big for her.

I had one implanted about 2 weeks ago.
For reference I also have 2 Stim units implanted (6 surgeries - due to doctor issues and one due to mechanical failure).

This surgery was outpatient and was the least painful recovery than any of the other ones.

In 2 weeks I already love the unit. They titrate up slowly but it has already given me more stable relfief than the pills, stimulators, or medical cannabis ever did. Plus I don’t have to carry pills around or worry if I forgot them at home.

I’d be glad to talk more if you want. I’ve been fighting chronic pain (as a result of Lyme disease) for more than 10 years now. Tried many different things.

So far this is the best hands down.
Carl

Just saw your comment. Hopefully someone will benefit from what I write. I have had an intrathecal pain pump since 2005 and currently on my 5th pump. Four of the pumps have been Medtronic and one was a Flonic intrathecal pain pump. Sadly the Flonic pump malfunctioned after 4 weeks and had to quickly be removed. The Dr that implanted the flonic pump said that programming each month was a nightmare requiring much time. I get my pump filled 1 time a month and has a mixture of 4 different pain meds, i.e., fentanyl, morphine, baclifin, colonidine and puvicane. Sorry about the mistakes in spelling of the meds. Before you make a decision about a pump know this, it WILL NOT take away all your pain, it will help you to deal with it better. You have to change your lifestyle by eating better, losing weight, exercise, boy I sound like a dr here, I'm not. Yes I have had the catheter block twice and be replaced. I overdosed twice because of the pumps but think of this, your not taking any oral pain meds anymore. I also have a medtronic pain stimulator as well and on my second device. Nothing is going to completely take away all of your pain. Would I do it again, yes I would because the two devices give me tools to get me through the day, everyday. One comment I do have to say is that all intrathecal device reps need to educate er rooms on what you have implemented in your body because the 2 times I overdosed the er departments treated me as if I was a drug addict even after they were made aware of the device.

I've been offered it for unrelenting pain after two spinal fusions at L4L5 (2nd successful we think). Sounds too good to be true. ANY AND ALL COMMENTS APPRECIATED. Thanks so much.. I'm 65 and pain has taken over my life. Nerve pain not the issue.

I apologize for the length of my post, but I have had a lot of problems after having a L5-S1 laminectomy, in 2012. I still don't know everything that the doctor did wrong, but he put a screw in the nerve root and moved it to another place during surgery. I felt like someone had put a golf ball coated in broken glass and left it in in my rectum. Every movement exacerbated the pain, but doctors in my area acted like I had the plague. I went to Baylor in TX, because an ER nurse at the local hospital said they had good neurosurgeons. I saw Dr. Daniel Kim, who looked at the MRI disc and said I had the "wrong kind" of surgery. He left the room and did not return. The physician assistant came in to tell me I needed to have an EMG test and spinal cord stimulator trial. I left and did not return. I went to Vanderbilt, which was a waste of time. I went to Mayo in FL, which is where I learned about the screw being put in the nerve root. Another screw was close to the S1 nerve, but the neurosurgeon would not remove it. They set me up with a neurologist, but the appointment was six months away, even though I live eight hours away. I went to other neurologists, which was a waste of time. I had been sent to pain management, by my primary care doctor. The opioid medication made it possible for me to barely function, but I still had a lot of uncontrolled pain. I went there until the facility stopped prescribing pain medication, to any of the patients, and started giving injections, only. A neurosurgeon told me I needed a tethered cord surgery before he could do an ALIF surgery to stabilize my spine. I did not believe him, because he would not answer my questions, but my family (and I) were afraid no one else would operate. (I had been to four or five neurosurgeons that did not want anything to do with me). After the surgeries I was no better. My pelvis tilted because of the surgeries and I had to have hip replacement. It was done incorrectly, but again no one wanted to help. It took two years to find a doctor that told me the truth, which was that the implant had been put in too steep. By this time, I was having to sleep in a recliner, because my hip would slide out of place, in bed, and I would wake up in so much pain that I could hardly get out of bed, which was necessary for me to work my hip around so it would stop hurting. The ortho. surgeon did a revision surgery and fixed my hip. I had been going to Comprehensive Pain Specialists, in Oak Ridge, TN for pain mgmt. The doctor did a trial injection, at L5-S1 I think, for a pain pump. He used Fentanyl, which took away all my pain, within minutes. I was sent to a surgeon to discuss pump implantation, but he acted really strange and said the pump would show through my clothing (like I cared). I went back to the pain facility, where the doctor acted strange and started talking about a spinal cord stimulator, for some unknown reason. Within a month he was gone and by the way everyone was acting, he had gotten fired. (I recently learned that he paralyzed two women, while doing some procedure). I was told to go to another CPS location, in Knoxville, if I wanted a pain pump. I went and was not able to see the doctor. The nurse practitioner was hateful and acted like I had done something wrong, but I was taking my medication as prescribed and had passed all the drug tests. It was strange that the other location, in Oak Ridge, had done urine drug screens almost every month, but the one in Knoxville did not do any. I finally asked for my records, but they were not sent. I was told that I had to get them from the corporate office in Gallatin, TN. It took them almost three months to send the records. I knew something had to be going on, by this time. Sure enough the nurse practitioner had put in the records that I was short of pills one month. (An unidentified person always counted the pills across the room. I knew I had the right amount and assumed that they agreed since they did not say anything). There were statements making me sound like a complete moron and drug seeker. I think this was because a doctor that is a friend of the first back surgeon had started working at CPS. (The records from the first pain management facility were honest and had nothing bad). The nurse practitioner kept telling me that she was doing everything possible to make my insurance company approve the pain pump. I called them and learned that she had not even sent my paperwork, or a request, for a pain pump. All the CPS offices are now closed in TN and there are lawsuits against the CEO. Thankfully my PCP sent me to a new pain management doctor, but they would not increase my medication. They did a myelogram that showed clumping of nerve roots. I had asked for this test after the L5-S1 surgery, but I had gone to the back surgeon's friend that went to CPS (I live in a small town with unethical doctors) and I was told that it would be dangerous for me to have the test. He did not want me to find out that I had lacerated nerves. I was not referred back to the interventional pain doctor that had ordered the myelogram, but to a nurse practitioner. He was extremely nice and went over the myelogram, but he did not tell me that clumping meant arachnoiditis. I had severe stenosis at L3-L4 and he wanted to send me to another neurosurgeon in the group. He said this one operated on people with previous surgeries. In order for me to be able to see the neurosurgeon, I had to sign a release for them to have the records from CPS. I should not have done this, because the nice NP returned to his former job and I was treated like complete crap after they saw the records. There were a few places that the lies contradicted themselves, such as when the NP had said she told "them and they" that "they" were short of pills, but after I had read the records and confronted the nurse practitioner, she documented that she went back and looked at the office visit and "the husband was not with her". My husband always went with me and this was clear because she had originally documented that she told "they and them". I pointed the errors out to the doctor and he said he had never seen anything like it before. I made sure that he noticed that they had not done any drug screens, during the year that I had gone to the CPS location, in Knoxville. This would never happen under normal circumstances at a pain mgmt. clinic in TN. The doctor still treated me terribly, although he knew I was telling the truth. I went to Emory and saw a neurosurgeon about having surgery for L3-L4 stenosis. He said he would put in a SCS at the same time of surgery, when I made an extra trip to ask more questions about the rectal pain that is still so bad. I do not want a SCS, because my first pain mgmt. doctor told me a pain pump would be a better option for someone with nerve root clumping, however, it is difficult to find someone near my home that maintains them. I went to Charlotte, to see a neurosurgeon, but I had to delay surgery after riding an exercise bicycle and inflaming the sacral nerve roots. The neurosurgeon told me that I had not had a tethered cord, meaning the surgery was bogus. The pain mgmt. nurse practitioner put comments in my records, making it sound like I was trying to avoid surgery to take pain pills. This was not true. The surgery was for stenosis and was not supposed to help the rectal pain. The nice nurse practitioner had changed my medication from oxycodone to fifty microgram fentanyl patches and they had never worked as well as the oxycodone. The neurosurgeon at Carolina Neurosurgery and a pain management doctor that I saw in Charlotte (just to see what he would say---it is a four hour drive from my house to Charlotte) said I should ask for something for breakthrough pain. I mentioned this to the NP, but she said she did not prescribe both short and long acting medications at the same time, which was a lie. She suggested that I take morphine and said it might work better. Although she said she would write a prescription for the same morphine equivalents, she wrote the prescription for ninety morphine equivalents, which was thirty milligrams less than what I was taking. She had not given the script to me, as she had done in the past, she gave it to the lady at the check out desk. She had sent me to wait in another office that was setting up a new MRI. When I got the order, which was for a MRI of my pelvis, it was without contrast. My previous imaging had been done with and without contrast. This was especially weird because she had ordered a cervical MRI with and without contrast. It seemed that she did not want any problems with my sacral nerves to show up. My older imaging reports said there is abnormal edema and atrophy in the sacral ala, and that this could mean denervation or a muscle tear. It is denervation, because I have severe atrophy and weakness in my lower extremities (something that the many doctors I have seen always want to overlook and not talk about). I did not have the MRI, after I saw that she had lowered my dose of medication. The Walgreens pharmacy that I use did not stock the type of morphine (Arymo) that the NP had wrote the script for. I took the script to a pharmacy near the pain mgmt. facility. The pharmacist said it was dangerous to lower my dose that much, after I told him what my problems were and how much pain I have. He offered to call the NP, which was concerning, but I said OK. The phone nurse called and let me have it. She said the pharmacist was not the pain management doctor. I was really scared and asked my PCP to send me to another pain management doctor. There was another reason for me to be scared. I had gotten a ganglion impar injection by the pain mgmt. doctor and it had caused my pain to worsen. I had called the doctor, but was told that he was on vacation and I would have to go to the ER, in a very hateful threatening tone. I went and was given a dilaudid injection and steroids. I was afraid they could dismiss me because of the dilaudid injection. Fortunately, I received a call from the new pain management office and did not have to send records from this place. The new doctor spent over two hours with me and said he did not know who had been prescribing my pain medication, but they must not have read my records. He doubled my pain medication. (My pain had gotten so bad that I could not do anything and I was crying all the time). I went back to Carolina Neurosurgery, but the neurosurgeon was on a three week vacation. I was told that I could suffer motor nerve loss and have worse bowel and bladder problems if I waited that long to have surgery, and that they would have someone else do the surgery. I only saw the new neurosurgeon for a few minutes, lying on a stretcher in the hospital, but he disagreed with his colleague and said it was possible for the surgery to help the rectal pain. I had the surgery and it miraculously got rid of the rectal pain. It caused my right leg to be weaker and the symptoms of drop foot to be worse, however, and I fell three weeks after the surgery was done, after my toes drug on the floor. By the next day the rectal pain was back. The neurosurgeon told me that he did not know why the pain was gone, which was a complete turnaround from what he had first said. I figured it had something to do with scarred nerves from the first back surgery and he did not want to discuss this. A neurologist told me that something had to fall on a nerve for the pain to return. He was going to order a pelvic MRI with protocols to show the nerves, but my insurance company wanted X Rays first. I had them done, but have not heard anything back from the neurologist. I had another trial injection for a pain pump by the new doctor. He used hydromorphone, but he did the injection at L3-4. It did not help, even though the nurse said the medication would gravitate down to the L5-S1 nerves. I had a consultation with a new neurosurgeon because I wanted to ask about arachnoiditis and cauda equina syndrome. I had read in the records from Carolina that I have progressive chronic cauda equina syndrome, and the neurosurgeon had said that nerve root clumping meant arachnoiditis, at the last appointment. The new neurosurgeon said that because of the arachnoiditis the medication would not gravitate down, which was why the trial did not work. He also said that the tethered cord surgery caused the arachnoiditis. I am having another trial next week and the doctor is going to use fentanyl, because I told them about the first trial. If he does it at the same place it will not work. I think he may have said he did not want to do it at L5-S1 because of the nerves, but the rep was saying something and I did not hear everything the doctor said. I will be so upset if he doesn't do the trial at L5-S1. I have read an article about opioid intolerance and I am afraid this could be why my pain medication is not working. I fell again on concrete and landed hard on my pelvis. The pain medication stopped controlling the rectal pain after the fall. The area constantly aches and burns. I use jar after jar of biofreeze cream, because of the menthol effect, but it doesn't stop the pain. I am very frightened for my future. Have you heard of anyone else that has rectal pain from nerve injury at L5-S1?