I mentioned previously that a number of the electrodes failed on the impedance test. Here’s the result of that test. They should all show as white, with orange showing where they failed. Not a good situation! 😮
Over the last 10 days or so I’ve been getting more frequent and more widespread stabbing pains, including the feeling that I’m being stabbed right through from the back to my chest or right side just below my armpit. Things got really bad on Friday evening, to the point I grabbed the remote to check the device hadn’t inadvertently been switched off. It looked ok so I decided to try one of the previous programmes to see if it was any better. It wasn’t so I changed back to the new programme again. However, when it started to increase the strength back to 6, it only got as far as 2 and then an error popped up to say the device couldn’t generate that strength and so it was returning to strength 1. I tried a few times but it would never go above 1. By this time I was in so much pain i took a couple of tramadol to help me get through the night.
It wasn’t much better on Saturday morning and so in an attempt to avoid overusing the tramadol I opted to have half a lidocaine patch on instead. This did seem to take the edge off. Needless to say I didn’t exactly do a lot on Saturday. That night was slightly better and I felt moderately human come Sunday morning, so early afternoon I went to the common with the dog so he could have a run around whilst I trundled around the footpaths in my chair. It was a little uncomfortable but it was so nice being out in the fresh air and seeing Bertie having a good old run around. When I got back I made a start on putting the Christmas decorations away. I hadn’t done that much before I needed to stop as the stabbing pains were back with a vengeance. I went back to playing Call of Duty, and whilst it did help keep my mind occupied, it felt like a new level of realism had been added to the game, as I felt like I was being repeatedly shot in the back and chest. 😀
Last night wasn’t good, and neither Ruth nor I slept much (I’m not sure if Ruth slept at all – a little stressed with the work she’s been doing all weekend!). I struggled to get myself sorted this morning and eventually decided it would be better if I took the whole day off instead of just a half day.
In other news, I got the clinic letter from the December appointment last week. The X-rays show that the paddle appears to be slightly dislodged and skewing to the right a bit. That probably explains why there is no response from the electrodes on the right. It also probably means the suggestion on Thursday will be to replace it, but let’s wait and see.
Hot off the press
Whilst typing this, the lovely Karen from the neuro team has called me back in response to the email I sent at the weekend. She did another impedance test remotely and it shows that further contacts are now showing as out of range, and she said that explains why the program can’t increase in strength. She is going to let Mr Mundil know ahead of my appointment on Thursday, when she thinks the conversation will be around replacing the paddle as they won’t be able to do any further reprogramming with it in its current state. In the meantime Karen said it’s ok for me to continue to use the lidocaine patches, and tramadol as needed.
I had another call from Karen a bit later in the day. She’d spoken to Mr Mundil and he confirmed the conversation on Thursday is definitely going to be about replacement. 😏