I’ve had lumbar disk problems for years, but pretty much under control until a couple of months ago when it got really bad. Severe pain in the L4-L5 where the disk is herniated, but also all the way down my butt, hamstrings and calves on both sides. Can’t sit, stand, walk or anything other than lying flat on my back without severe pain.
Tried several things, and doc finaly gave me a scrip for Vicodin, but trying not to take as much as Dr House.
It helps some, but not completely, and hate taking that stuff. Finally, he sent me to a neurologist/pain specialist who has me scheduled for epidural steroid injections later in the month, with another one a week later.
Reading all the info he provided leads me to believe it won’t be all that bad, but on the other hand when I get to the possible side effects, which are always dire, it did not ease my mind.
Anybody gone through this procedure? How much fun was it? Did it have lasting pain-reducing effects? Would you do it again?
My roomate has had them. He’s had back problems all of his life and I just read him your topic. That’s what he had too, only now he’s got three ruptured discs and one torn. He says:
“They’re okay in the short run. For a temporary time, you’ll feel better, but only for short term relief. In the long run, though, it doesn’t work to any great degree. The side effects you have nothing to worry about, they don’t seem to come up much. Again, it’s good for short term only. You can only get a few a year.”
Stearoid injections aren’t meant to be just temporary aids, though they often turn out that way.
If you have radiculopathy resulting from a disc crushing a nerve root, not only do you feel pain in the limb served by the root, but the root itself also typically swells. By swelling, it compounds the problem of the newly limited space it occupies crushing it. Even though the space typically gradually opens up again, it may take a long time to be big enough for the swollen nerve, or may never be. Stearoids and other antiinflammatories reduce the swelling. If you’re lucky, there’s enough room around the nerve at this point that it isn’t being crushed anymore, and this painful cycle is broken.
Though, I had 3 such injections, and while the 1st was somewhat helpful for a while, the others were progressively less so. I then had surgery and got relief that way. If you’re interested, I hear that surgery to decompress a lumbar disc off of nerve root and relieve leg pain has about an 85% success rate, much better than back surgery to relieve pain felt in the back itself.
I haven’t, but a close friend of mine had it done about five months ago. Prior to that she’d been crippled with pain, numbness in her feet and legs, great difficulty moving, in too much pain to sleep; all of the things you’ve talked about. She was in great distress.
Her doctor thought that surgery would be the only option, but suggested the epidural in the hopes that it might work. From memory I think she was told that generally it takes an average of two injections to work.
She had one and the effect was almost miraculous. The pain was relieved pretty much immediately.
It took a couple of weeks for the full effect to occur and she had a week or so of after-effects from the injection, but she was able to come back to work in a graduated process over a few weeks and she’s been fine ever sense. No pain, no numbness, able to move around freely and resume her life and come back to work full time.
Having visited her several times while she was in pain, the relief after the epidural was incredibly obvious.
Her description of the procedure was that it was a bit painful, took quite a lot of preparation (getting the right spot on the spine lined up etc), but the process itself didn’t take very long.
She went to a practice which specialises in the procedure and has regular clinics … you’d want to make sure that whoever does it really knows what they’re doing.
I don’t know if her experience is typical since this is the first time I’ve heard of the procedure. I also don’t know if it’s significant that although she’d had off and on spells of back trouble for a year or so, it generally resolved itself after some rest.
The epidural was performed after a sudden onset bout which didn’t resolve itself, which was when she had the xrays done and got a proper diagnosis and then the procedure.
This past summer, I had two sets of injections. My situation is different from yours, so I’ll describe it here. My problems are relatively minor, just some numbness and (painful) tingling in my left thigh, and mild lower back pain. I’ve had back pain for years, but never worried about it much, until my left leg acted up. I have only a slightly bulging disk, not enough to cause most people problems. The conclusion seems to be that my problems are from my slight back problems combined with poor posture riding a bike and sitting, and probably from running. (I tend to lean back when I run downhill, a decade or so of that at a reasonably high speed might have caused the problem.)
I was told steroid injections work about 20% of the time. I was injected twice with no relief, although the subsequent symptoms helped diagnose my issue so it was worthwhile. The next step was to ablate the problem nerves, after another, this time purely diagnostic, set of injections. Neither procedure was painful, although I was out for all of them, so who knows? None of the procedures appear to have worked for me, although the ablation brought temporary relief quickly. Since I don’t have a ruptured disk. I sent myself to PT, and hope to address my problems that way. For me stretching seems to help tremendously, although I have yet to have even one minute feeling completely well.
I had a couple for cervical/thoracic spine radiculopathies several years ago.
The pain relief was almost instantaneous as the injections were a mix of lidocaine and cortisone. Unfortunately, the analgesia only lasted about a week, but the cortisone presumably had longer-lasting effects on the internal swelling.
That’s how it worked for one of my climbing partners. She had bursitis in her one shoulder. Her bursa was getting squished between part of her shoulder blade and another bone. When it was squished, it got inflamed. The inflammation meant there wasn’t enough room for the bursa. So her bursa was getting squished between part of her shoulder blade and another bone. When it was squished, it got inflamed… Repeat ad nauseum.
Steroid injections reduced the inflammation so that he bursa could heal up and physiotherapy and other treatments could work. It was enough of a short-term solution for PT to correct the problem that caused the bursa to get squished the first time.
>The pain relief was almost instantaneous as the injections were a mix of lidocaine and cortisone.
This makes an interesting point. As they explained it to me, there are both anaesthetic and antiinflammatory drugs present. The antiinflammatory is what you’re trying to deliver, but you need the anaesthetic to make the procedure practically comfortable. An unintended consequence is that there is some immediate relief of symptoms coming just from the anaesthetic, when they get it all the way in there. This can provide feedback to the people performing the procedure, as well as instant gratification to the patient.
Also interestingly, when they send the drugs into the target space, the patient can have a most amazing feeling of their leg getting immersed or surrounded by something. This sensation was not painful or unpleasant but was very interesting and surprising, when I had it.
I’ve had the procedure done twice, for a work-related back injury. The first injection provided immediate relief. The second was not quite as effective, but the following 5 1/2 months of physical therapy (overseen by a red head with a fantastic rack) allowed me to return to work.
Thanks, everybody, for the information. I’ll hope I’m one of the ones who does get some lasting freedom from pain. My doc did indicate I might need some PT afterward (but said nothing about busty redheads).
I had a series of PT sessions years ago for a torn rotator cuff. They told me that "PT"stands for Pain and Torture. Not far off the mark.
I wish I knew. Especially now that I’m single. When my treatment first started, she’d take me outside, to walk around the grounds “to see where you’re at, so that I can make a treatment plan for you.”
Did I mention that it was cold outside? Like your-headlights-are-on-high-beam cold?
Not that I stared, of course, but almost suffered a major setback tripping over that sprinkler head.
My mom, now 81, used to suffer terribly from sciatica. She had an epidural block for it, was fine until she coughed really hard from bronchitis, and had to have another block done. She has been fine ever since, and that was some years ago.
