Kathy's Story*

Early one morning, Kathy awoke to unusual and intense pain sensations. This nurse and office manager rarely missed her job because of illness. So she got out of bed, dressed, and drove to the cardiology clinic where she worked. But she went home later that day and began a two-year period in which pain was with her “24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

Part of the reason she suffered was that doctors didn’t know what was wrong with her. She received wildly varying diagnoses and was given everything from medications to acupuncture to physical therapy to address her symptoms. For years nothing eased her pain, which could quickly be accompanied by stabbing and squeezing sensations. Stoic by nature, Kathy kept going to work and interacting with her patients and office staff. But she recalls the pain’s wearing effect. “I tried not to let it interfere, but I think it did. It was a struggle.”

Despite her background in medicine, Kathy didn’t know much about neurostimulation until a pain specialist proposed that it might help her. She did a temporary evaluation of neurostimulation and remembers the exhilaration, for the first time in years, of having her pain fade away. “It was like heaven,” she says. “I was so excited.” Because of this newfound relief, she hated the idea that her pain would return when the trial ended.

Kathy endured the few weeks it took to arrange an implant procedure and then got a neurostimulator. These days, pain no long distracts her from the daunting task of serving nearly two dozen cardiologists at her workplace. “Being able to get through a day without pain—it’s made all the difference in the world,” she says. “It’s changed my life.”

*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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