Thursday, March 06, 2003

I got in to see my urologist today. We solved the mystery of the over zotzed interstim implant: During surgery, I needed quite a bit of lidocaine - the local anesthetic. In fact, my doc gave me the maximum allowed for my weight. Evidently some of the lidocaine seeped into the canal created by the removal of my first lead. As a result, the nerves in that region were significantly "numbed." When we did the lead testing during surgery, the amplitude settings were comparatively high (for me): 2.0 and higher. This is because, unknown to all of us, my nerves were really rather numb and it took a high setting for for me to register any sensation at all. After surgery, the unit was turned off, but was preset to a setting of 1.3. Yesterday, when I turned on the implant for the first time since surgery, the setting was at 1.3. However, all of the local anesthetic had worn off. So, I was launched through the ceiling by the shock. This also explains why I've been so sore in the sensitive zone. It received a pretty unbelievable workout during surgery. The zone is now very tired and quite uninterested in any more shocks. Certainly nothing more like yesterday's little Johnny Quest adventure. I was a total chicken today in the doctor's office. I was way spooked by the thought of turning my implant back on. However, we preset it to a level of .1 (point one) and then, after a lot of whining on my part, very gingerly turned it on. Voila! I could feel it at just the right level. Yea! .1 is the lowest possible level. So it's pretty amazing that I can feel it. Dr. Jacoby must have got that lead smack dab on my nerve. Which is a good thing. Plus us fibro/cfs folks seem to be ultra-sensitive - we have amazing nuerological systems. The close placement also explains the sensations I'm experiencing even when the implant is off. I can bend forward and get some odd feelings. It's my guess that the nerve is rubbing just a tad on the implant. I'm still so sore that I can't bear to have the implant on at even .1. Dr. Jacoby suggests that I wait 2-3 weeks before turning it back on. Sounds like a reasonable idea to me So, all's well that ends well! 8:32:26 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2005 Stephanie A. Kesler. Last update: 3/5/2005; 8:59:38 PM.