Nurse keeps working after chronic pain treatment
East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation TrustA nurse from Kent has told how being fitted with spinal cord stimulation for chronic pain has allowed her to keep doing her job.
Christina Peter, from Whitstable, was born with talipes, or club foot as it is more commonly known.
The 63-year-old has had multiple surgeries to help her walk and has suffered from chronic pain due to nerve damage.
After being offered a offered a spinal cord stimulator, which sends electrical impulses to the nerves in her spinal cord, Ms Peter said she "no longer needs to use a crutch at work and the pain is manageable”.
She said: “The pain got to the point where I would avoid walking as much as possible which is very difficult to do when you’re a nurse on a ward."
Ms Peter was redeployed on health grounds 15 years ago to a less physically demanding job at Kent and Canterbury Hospital to work as a phototherapy nurse.
She was given various treatments to help with the pain, such as nerve blocks and heating, but they only offered short-term relief.
"I have been a nurse for 44 years and to give it up early would be devastating for me," she said.
“If it wasn’t for this stimulator, I would have stopped working. There’s no way I would have been able to continue."
Tina Elliott, chronic pain lead for the NHS in east Kent, said: “A spinal cord stimulator is fitted just under the skin.
“It’s a fantastic bit of kit that is designed to be a permanent way to manage chronic nerve pain."
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