Principles of MCS
Now that I can muck around a bit with my MCS settings, I figured I should explain what I'm talking about.
My MCS is a pulse generator (located under my collarbone) hooked up to wires. The wires run up the back of my neck, over my ear, and to leads. The leads are attached to the covering of the brain (the dura). This part of the brain is called the central solecus (I know I'm not spelling it correctly). The neurosurgeon confirmed the leads would do the job by waking me up and asking me.
The leads deliver a pulse of energy. When correctly located, it can prevent the pain signals I get from my face to my brain. It's not a perfect solution because the cause of the pain is still there. But at least I'm not crippled by pain.
A pulse of energy is simply diagrammed as a wave. There are three priniciples of waves: power or intensity, frequecy or how many times a minute, and width or how wide the wave is.
My remote device allows me to increase or decrease all three paramters. But there are safeguard limits set to all so that I don't fry my brain with too much power or something like that.
Through trial and error, I've learned the the (pulse) width has the biggest effect on my pain perception. Then power (amplitude), and lastly frequency.
I've already had a hard lesson in that if the pulse width is set too high, things like my right hand become affected. So I don't have a lot of lattitude on adjusting my pulse width. I have more flexibility in adjusting my amplitude. I turn it down when I'm not experiencing a lot of pain so that I can turn it up when I need it.
I'll keep playing with the frequency setting, but so far doesn't seem to have any dramatic effects like the pulse width and amplitude can.
My MCS is a pulse generator (located under my collarbone) hooked up to wires. The wires run up the back of my neck, over my ear, and to leads. The leads are attached to the covering of the brain (the dura). This part of the brain is called the central solecus (I know I'm not spelling it correctly). The neurosurgeon confirmed the leads would do the job by waking me up and asking me.
The leads deliver a pulse of energy. When correctly located, it can prevent the pain signals I get from my face to my brain. It's not a perfect solution because the cause of the pain is still there. But at least I'm not crippled by pain.
A pulse of energy is simply diagrammed as a wave. There are three priniciples of waves: power or intensity, frequecy or how many times a minute, and width or how wide the wave is.
My remote device allows me to increase or decrease all three paramters. But there are safeguard limits set to all so that I don't fry my brain with too much power or something like that.
Through trial and error, I've learned the the (pulse) width has the biggest effect on my pain perception. Then power (amplitude), and lastly frequency.
I've already had a hard lesson in that if the pulse width is set too high, things like my right hand become affected. So I don't have a lot of lattitude on adjusting my pulse width. I have more flexibility in adjusting my amplitude. I turn it down when I'm not experiencing a lot of pain so that I can turn it up when I need it.
I'll keep playing with the frequency setting, but so far doesn't seem to have any dramatic effects like the pulse width and amplitude can.
posted by Jenn @ 08:40
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