Jeanine's Story

Chronic pain affects people around the world, including those where Jeanine lives. This resilient mother of three makes her home on the southwest coast of Australia, just outside of Perth. After dealing with pain for over 30 years, she was introduced to neurostimulation—and a better quality of life.

Jeanine’s pain started when she was a young woman serving in the Australian Defense Force. One morning, while taking part in a competition with army and navy units that involved running an obstacle course, Jeanine had trouble jumping over a log. “I landed the wrong way,” she says. “I basically lost my footing and fell straight down.”

Although Jeanine didn’t know it, the fall had damaged her spine. For years, the injury nagged her as she left the military, got married, and started a family and career. Eventually her spine problem was diagnosed, and she underwent surgery to correct it. Yet like thousands of patients on every continent, the pain intensified after surgery.

Severe pain became a daily reality for Jeanine. Reluctantly, she began to depend on her teenage daughter to shop, do errands, and help run the household. Jeanine thought about a fellow veteran who had a terrible pain condition and later committed suicide. She could understand his despair. “When you get to that pain level, you think, ‘I don’t want to be here,’” she says. “I didn’t want to be 60 and still in the amount of pain I was in.”

A turning point came when Jeanine visited a pain specialist who recommended she try neurostimulation. The specialist performed a procedure that let her experience the therapy for a few days. Afterwards, he checked to see if she wanted to take the next step and have a stimulator implanted. “He said, ‘What do you think?’” Jeanine recalls. “I said, ‘Sign me up.’”

Jeanine later got her fully implanted neurostimulator and soon her pain was easier to manage. Now she takes about half as much pain medication as before and has more independence. She hopes that others become aware of spinal cord stimulation, especially in her native country. “I wish I’d known about it years ago. By trying it, you give yourself one more chance. If it’s right for you, you’ll know it.”

*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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