I developed a neck spasm on the side I had the surgery, and it was so painful I finally called the doctor. They asked me if my pain was intermittant or constant. They were thinking that perhaps the implant had accidentally turned itself on and was causing the pain. Since it was constant, though, the final call was that it was indeed a muscle spasm.
It’s pretty bad when you don’t need the prescription pain medication because someone cut two holes in your body, but because of the muscle spasm your neck develops in protest.
So I’ve been using the heating pad, and they gave me permission to take ibuprofen. Since the Percoset keeps me awake, I’ve been trying to do that instead. After two days of that treatment, I’m doing better.
The surgical cuts themselves look pretty good after 5 days. I think I mentioned that they used surgical superglue instead of stitches, and it’s starting to peel at the edges. I just trim it. I’ve been wearing scarves to cover up the mark in my neck, which is actually worse than the one below my shoulder. I also have a couple of extremely dark bruises beside the incision — I’m not sure exactly what they did during surgery to cause those.
I am noticing that I wear out more quickly than I’d like, but I guess it’s pretty traumatic to the body to undergo that, especially since I was so sick afterward.
I still haven’t gotten the scoop on when they’re going to turn it on. The doctor’s office has to schedule it, and the woman in charge of that accidentally scheduled it before I had the surgery. Imagine my surprise when I got a call from the turn-it-on-doctor telling my I’d missed my appointment to have something that hadn’t yet been implanted turned on.
The doctor’s office was supposed to reschedule and let me know when, and since I haven’t heard from them I called to remind them.
VNS and Me 