scruffy1 (@scruffy1)

There are several MDs in Brunswick, GA that promote them. That's where I had mine implanted @ age 68. Five other people I know got them and only one was younger than I.

My now-85-year old neighbor needed an MRI, so he had the impedance checked on his leads. ALL 8 were bad on one side of his back! The MRI was necessary so he had surgery to remove the entire Nevro unit including leads. He took prescribed opioids until he discovered 0% THC hemp oil which he now takes twice a day in place of the opioids… and with remarkable results. GO FIGURE!

@bk63 BEST WISHES

@thankful DEA is under a lot of pressure to fix what the doctors and Big Pharma caused. Do you think this is new? It goes back to the early 1940s. Anyone reading this, Google "Direct Sales v. U.S." and see how look the Industry has been into profit from addiction. We studied this in an 80-hour class I took on federal conspiracy law. It will open your eyes because this is actually law decided by the U.S Supreme Court…and I'm not one who is into what, today, they call "a conspiracy."

@thankful the way he explained it to me was that for everyone/every time?? he prescribes opioids to me knowing I am on clonazepam, DEA gives him a "strike, and 10 "strikes" and they go after his license to prescribe. From conversations later I doubt that knew the consequences for ME of a 2-week taper. But even if he knew about the 6-month Ashton schedule and thereby prescribed the stepdown drug of Valium, he'd be in trouble. My guess is that he needed me off one or the other ASAP and rather than push back for an exception, he just told me I had to do it. I spent 4 years on a DEA (illegal drug – mostly cocaine) task force and 23 years in the fed gov't: bureaucrats make decisions in a vacuum, so I blame them equally.

@thankful I, too, went to a physiatrist but for back issues. In June 2018 he told me that my clonazepam, which was prescribed by a neurologist for my neuropathy, could no longer be prescribed with my pain meds (new DEA regs), so he tapered me off the 2mg./day IN TWO WEEKS. Life was hell for almost 6 months after, and 9 months later I still have a few issues. Be careful of doctors working out of their specialties, i.e. tapering off a drug he's not that familiar with in orthopedic work.

@lizaa, have you considered the Ashton schedules?

@ahayes @ws4k @marychapman Leads can really be a problem. My neighbor has a Nevro. The leads/electrodes on one side of his spine had so much scar tissue form around them that they had too much impedance. (Apparently some scar tissue is expected in order to hold the lead in place but not excess amounts.) He didn't know how much or when this occurred because the lead on the opposite side was working and still gave him relief. It was when he had them tested in order to get an MRI that it was discovered. He had an operation to take everything out in order to get the MRI. At 84, he still hasn't replaced the leads/electrodes/unit. We both find it unusual that the electrodes on one side were ALL not working while on the other side, all 8 were.