Last February, I got a brand new spinal cord stimulator that offers me a huge amount of pain relief. I could suddenly work all day. I could go to my kid’s graduation. I could feel the outsides of my feet!

But in my heart of hearts, what I really wanted was to stop seeing my pain doc.

Before I go on, I want to acknowledge two things: 1) It took years to find a pain doc who trusts me as a reporter of my own experience, and it was mostly luck that got me there; and 2) even though I found a good provider, I hated having to haul myself to the clinic every 28 days to pee in a cup and be reminded that the synthetic opioid I took had the potential to be extremely addictive.

To be clear, I believe opioids should be dispensed with care and caution. At the same time, it is well-documented that people like me who use the drugs under clinical supervision are less at risk for disordered use than those who purchase the drugs illegally. And after close to a decade of use, every 28 days was feeling excessive.1

But I digress. The point is that the minute I realized my stimulator helped, I began weaning myself off the meds and never looked back, thrilled with my results. Prior to the stimulator, even on the meds, I was living daily life between a pain level of 5-6.........

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