Back Pain Community

Can do! I've had neck and back pain for twenty years. In 1990 I broke my neck and had laminectomy at c4-5 and c-5-6. My neck always felt like I slept on it wrong. I could not stand more then 10 minutes in one place or sit for long either. Somehow I kept active and raraly took an aspirin. The chronic pain syndrome was what stopped me in my tracks. The pump has decreased the pain in my neck from an 8 on the pain scale to a 6.Any pain patient knows this is huge. I actually cried about a week after my surgery when I noticed the neck pain was diminished. Forgot how much my neck and back really hurt until I got some relief. Try everything under the sun before a pain pump but if it is your quality of life and just existing,well, not even close decision for me. I hate pain help is there. Again,surgery could kill you. It's an easy call for me to make. Good luck and just a little less pain day!

Hi again -

Thanks for sharing your story - WOW! you have gone thru a lot with breaking your neck. I just could not imagine that - You can click on my name or pic and read my story.

As with Fusion surgeries the success rates are about 40-60% for spine stability. However, as with any spine surgery there is no guarantee. I consider my fusion to be a success as I did fuse 100%, the plate, screws and cage are all intact but I have worse pains than before my surgery (L5-S1). My pains goes from just touching the lower back all the way down to the fusion site. Plus I have nerve damage in both legs as the L5-S1 disc not only ruptured but it also splintered where part of the disc was pressing on the left S1 nerve root and another part was on the right S1 nerve root so I had to have the fusion surgery. My pains are a 10 24/7

I have had all treatment options done with the last resort being the pain pump implant and for the last 2-3 yrs I have been researching and speaking with everyone who has it - all the pro's and con's.

One Pain Specialist I saw for this wanted me to completely go off all my pain meds for 30 days before he would consider doing the implant!!!! I told him he was crazy and that I would end up in the hospital. I told my PHYSIATRIST Pain PA and she was appalled and asked the other PA's about that - she found out that there were several patients they referred to him where he made same statement. I have seen another Spine Specialist (Neurosurgeon) who does the implants and he wanted to try HIS SCS Implant as he developed a "FLAT PANEL" leads instead of the wire leads. He kept telling me it would take away the pains in my legs but when I drilled him on my back he was very vague so I have decided NO on that as I had disastrous results - where it did take my leg pains away but increased my lower back pains almost triple the pains. I take Neurontin for the legs and it has the pains etc under control, so my question to this doc was WHY CHANGE THAT? I just cannot go for that when my main concern is my lower back.

Oops sorry - my pain meds are taking effect and I'm babbling! LOL This is all on my story -

Anyway - thanks again for sharing with us and we hope to hear more from you and your success with the pain pump as that is really good results~~