Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Risks
By Mayo Clinic staffVagus nerve stimulation is considered generally safe. But it does pose the risk of numerous problems, some serious. You may have risks both from the surgery to implant the device and from the brain stimulation.
Surgery risks
Surgical complications may include:
- Incision pain
- Infection
- Damage to the vagus nerve
- Breathing problems
- Nausea
- Heart problems
- Incision scarring
Side effects after surgery
Side effects and adverse health problems associated with vagus nerve stimulation include, but may not be limited to:
- Voice changes
- Hoarseness
- Cough
- Neck pain
- Chest pain
- Breathing problems, especially during exercise
- Difficulty swallowing
- Tingling or prickling of the skin
- Sore throat
- Pulse generator malfunction or movement, which may require additional surgery
- Worsening of depression
- Suicidal thoughts or behavior
These side effects may continue as long as you use vagus nerve stimulation, which could be years. However, the electrical impulses can be adjusted to help minimize these effects. If side effects are intolerable, the device can be shut off temporarily or permanently.
