Re: Spinal Cord stimulator

More | Report Post

On 2/18/08, Deb Brinker wrote:
> Oh believe me I have had the same sort of experience that you
> have had. My trail stimulator was fantastic. I had been in
> pain for 15 years. I was cutting down on my pain meds and
> thinking on was on top of the world. What a joke. It took two
> surgeries to get the SCS put in. Once I got it in it did not
> work. It did not work because the leads broke. Of course,
that
> had never happened before. They removed the leads and left the
> battery pack in and off I went to doctor number three. All the
> time the rep is my best friend. She ought to of been for the
> money it was costing me. Doctor number three put the new leads
> new but left in the old battery pack. I had a new rep who
tried
> to program my machine and he ended up burning my whole entire
> insides. I was in so much pain that it wasn't funny. They
> never got this stimulator to work so I went back in again to
get
> the battery pack changed. Needles to say that did not work
> either. A month after they put that one in I ended up with a
> temp of 102.9. I was rushed from my doctors office by
ambulance
> to the hospital that put it in. That was a hour and a half
> away. I found out that I had a severe infection and they had
to
> remove all of my equipment. Of course, that never happened to
> anyone either. I was in the hospital for 5 days. I had to
have
> IV anti-biotics for the next 6 weeks with a visiting nurse.
>
> Now I am thousands of dollars in debt, my back and leg hurts
> worse than when I started, and I have to see a psychologist for
> the depression. Of course I no longer hear from the rep and
the
> doctor had the nerve to ask me if I would like to have a pain
> pump put in. Nice! I have been trying to find an attorney to
> take my case against ANS but so far have come up against a
brick
> wall. We live in a little time and everyone says I have a good
> case but that it is too time consuming for them.
>
> I hope that you get feeling better. I do know what you are
> going through. It is very hard to handle. Believe me it is
> just not your doctors. I live in Michigan and I am in the same
> mess.
> Sincerely,
> Deb
>
> On 2/18/08, Guy Bodemer wrote:
>> On 2/02/08, Carolina wrote:
>>> One day in January of 2007 I had an appointment with my
>>> doctor for injections for lower back pain and pain in my
>>> legs. I also got prescriptions for medication on these
>>> visits. I walked to the room I was sent to and there were
>>> all kinds of different displays advertising Advanced
>>> Neuromodulation Systems Inc. (ANS) Spinal cord
>>> stimulators. The doctor then proceeded to tell me how
>>> wonderful these things were. He said I would be out of
>>> most of my pain and would have a better quality of life if
>>> I had the surgery to put it in. He said I would be able
>>> to travel and visit my grandkids. I trusted this doctor
>>> more than any doctor ever. I also liked him as a person.
>>> I believed everything he said. Before I had the surgery
>>> to implant the spinal cord stimulator he said that he had
>>> to put a trial stimulator in and that it would have to be
>>> done in his office. The trial stimulator was done in
>>> February. The wires were connected to the stimulator
>>> which was on the outside. I was very excited that it
>>> worked so well. I found out later that the trial
>>> stimulator always works and that is why patients get the
>>> surgery to put the permanent one in thinking it will work
>>> like the trial one did. An appointment was made by the
>>> doctor's office for me to go to the doctors office to have
>>> the permanent one put in. I had never met the doctor who
>>> put in the permanent one. He was 6 hours late arriving
>>> for the procedure. Everytime I said I wanted to leave the
>>> nurse said "wait 15 more minutes he said he will be here"
>>> He finally showed up and said he worked with my regular
>>> doctor. Although I was very upset and in a lot of pain, I
>>> thought because he worked with my doctor and I trusted my
>>> doctor so much I would go ahead with the surger. What a
>>> mistake that was. He was rough with me when I cried and
>>> told him how bad he was hurting me he wouldn't even
>>> answer. He stapled my back and nobody stopped him. I
>>> prayed for god to let me die because the pain was so bad.
>>> All I was to this doctor was money on the table. I
>>> thought the spinal cord stimulator would work but even if
>>> i turned it on and walked across the floor it would shock
>>> me and I would have to turn it off. I could not move or
>>> do anything with it turned on. The rep from ANS wanted me
>>> to keep trying to use it. He said I had to keep trying to
>>> get used to it. He even reprogrammed it but that just
>>> made it worse. While laying down I turned it on low the
>>> way he told me to and I injured my legs doing this. My
>>> legs now shake all the time and tingle. I also have
>>> trouble with my kidneys since having the surgery. I am in
>>> the bathroom every 20 minutes. I will have to probably go
>>> out of state to find a doctor who will even be willing to
>>> look at it. I had the thing taken out and the pain that
>>> it caused me is awful. My hip still hurts and thobs all
>>> the time. I get very little sleep. I went through all of
>>> this because of greedy doctors and a greedy corporation.
>>> Nobody explained risks of this thing to me such as loss of
>>> sensation, loss of limb function, stroke, cardiac arrest
>>> or permanent damnage to other body organs even death. I
>>> found this out after I had it removed! Can anyone please
>>> respond who has had any similar experiences. Fed up with
>>> doctors in SOUTH CAROLINA

I just wanted to let people about a Supreme Court ruling that
was inacted on 2/18/08. This ruling has determined that: if a
medical device was approved by the F.D.A.,consumers may not sue
the manufacturer under state law. Therefore, medical device
makers like Medtronic, won big time protection by law from being
sued by patients that have been injured by any of it's devices,
as long as they have already been approved by the F.D.A. Problem
is, the F.D.A. has also been questioned about it's ability to
ensure the safety of these products. This results in an FDA that
is inadequate at protecting us against unsafe medical devices
and a ruling that blocks patients from winning compensation when
injured! We should all be outraged at this! It is a big defeat
for those of us who have been injured by these devices and a
major win for the medical device companies that seem to care
more about profits that providing the public with safe
products!