Epidural Injection

I had my first epidural injection this week for chronic back pain. I've got a herniated disk at T1/T2 that's been causing me major pain for a year. I finally agreed to the epidural, which I had on Tuesday. It's not Friday and the increased pain from the epidural has finally worn off. OMG! When they say you may be sore, they have no idea what they are saying! Seriously, from about 2 hours after I got home through the next 24 hours or so I was in insane pain. I usually try to avoid taking pain meds and have done pretty well at it other than when I can't sleep or the pain is just insane to the point that I can't take it. The way I figure it the more I learn to just "cope with it" the higher my tolerance goes. But, I couldn't cope with it and took the Norco they gave me for post procedure. It's now Friday and that "added" pain is gone but the regular back pain that I had prior to the injection is right where it was before the injection.

I don't get this, what I've read is that these things work about 50% of the time, when they don't work they tell you to come back and try again in a few weeks/month. So, I'm supposed to go through increased pain multiple times to SEE if this injection will work?

I'm just glad they put me in twilight for the actual injection, I can't image how much worse I'd feel about these prospects if I'd had to be awake for the procedure.

Hi Julie, don't throw in the towel yet on the ESI as generally it can take up to 2 weeks for you to feel any benefit from the injection. It is normal to have increased pain for a few days after having one too. They are done usually in a series of 3 injections spaced apart. The type of injections BTL is speaking about are completely different than what you just had.

It is tough having a herniated disc in the thoracic spine as most drs will not do surgery in this area of the spine because its too risky. Although I understand you being hesitant about not taking any pain medication, trying to tough it out really is not the best way to handle the pain. That will not build your pain tolerance the way you think it will. The problem associated with people having high pain tolerance it often works against us instead of helping us. By that I mean sure we may be able to endure more pain but it also takes more pain medication to knock our pain levels down too, so that really is not a plus at all. So, if you have something for pain I would suggest taking it before the pain gets out of hand, its a lot easier to keep the pain at bay that way.

Take care. I will keep my fingers crossed the ESI gives you some relief.

straydog said...
H. The type of injections BTL is speaking about are completely different than what you just had.

Oops, I'm sorry. As I said ... almost every other person on this board is much more experienced with these things than I. Apologies for any irrelevant information I posted. Good luck.