Back with Family and Friends: Betsy*

What do you do when your pain treatments aren’t working? If you’re a retired schoolteacher like Betsy, you investigate your alternatives. After hearing that a neurostimulator might be able to relieve her arm and leg pain, Betsy went to the Internet and visited websites that explained the devices. She soon concluded that stimulation was worth a try.

“It made a lot of sense to me to have something that could mask the pain,” she says. Her online research and confidence in her doctor led her to have a stimulation trial.

Although the stimulation had to be adjusted to make it more comfortable, she soon realized that most of her pain was relieved without the side effects of the medications and injections she’d tried before.

“I can do most of what I want to do,” she says after having a permanent neurostimulator implanted. Now she runs errands, volunteers at a local elementary school, and assists the elderly in nursing homes—a schedule far from the one she had just a little while ago. Before getting her device, Betsy was “pretty limited” because she couldn’t drive, write, or even fill out a checkbook because of the pain in her arms and legs.

“When you’re in pain, you don’t have the enjoyment of life,” Betsy explains. “Friends and family try to help, but there’s nothing they can do. You end up being the sad sack of the group.” But that’s no longer the case for Betsy. With her new life as proof that she’s no longer separated from others, Betsy proclaims, “Stimulation gave me a way back.”

*The above testimonial is the experience of this individual only. It is an individual result and we do not claim that it is representative of the experience that all or most patients achieve and is not indicative of future performance or success.

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