Posted on Mar 26, 2014
Does anyone else have a spinal cord stimulator implant?
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Just looking for folks to share experiences and talk with about the SCS implant and other back procedures.
Posted >1 y ago
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Do you have an update on your condition SGT Doug Witten ? Did you get the implant? The Army wanted to do the same for me and when I talked to a neurosurgeon, he said it would have been a waste of time (for me). I'm curious to see if it helped you.
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SGT Doug Witten
I had the implant put in in Nov 2012...I'll be shoot straight here, the recovery was definitely tough. Quite a bit of pain involved, but I can say that after almost two years I do get a decent amount of pain relief from it. The programming has had to be adjusted fairly regularly to keep up with your pain needs, but the company who the product belongs to will be just a call away. St. Jude Medical in my case. Now that the implant is in and healed up there are a few things to be aware of. Similar to all technology, maintenance is required periodically. The battery that powers my stim has an average life of 7-10 years depending on usage. I keep mine on all day everyday, so I'm interested to see if it lives up to the time frame I was provided. Whenever the battery does stop functioning another surgery will be performed to extract the old battery and insert the new one. Keep the questions coming, Im more than happy to help you guys out.
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SGT Harvey Watson
Were you allowed to stay in or did you get medically separated SGT Witten?
I am also the recipient of the SCI and unfortunately I have still had a lot of pain and problems.
I am also the recipient of the SCI and unfortunately I have still had a lot of pain and problems.
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I'm currently doing the trial and definitely thinking of opting for the permanent implant. Trying to find info on how the implant affects the remaining time I have in the military. Does it become a DLC (Deployment Limiting Conidition) i.e. have to stay within the U.S. or only places that can take care of it if something goes wrong? Kinda like how EFMP works? I'm at Walter Reed but as MED TDY so I don't belong to the WTU. My doc is is Navy so he isn't sure how this plays into my career. I'm happy as hell with the care I've been getting down here (Seriously! I truly didn't think competent, caring medical care this good existed in the military, no offense to anyone out there). Any info would be appreciated. Apparently this is very rare in the Army.
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