Horrible Epidural Block Experience

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matt3507

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Hi Joan: I'm sorry to hear about your health problem and the poor treatment you recieved. I don't have much advice, but I would suggest posting here with something like "pain doc. needed in ______ city". I'm in seattle and asked here and got a couple of suggestions. You never know. Worth a try. Also this might not help much but the more doctors I see the less I am willing to put up with. They can get WAY too big for their britches and think they can get away with anything. (The lousy ones). The last guy I saw was a complete jackass and I won't go back.

If you are in pain ask your doctor if he knows of any med's that will help you deal with the pain. In my experience they usually don't offer. You have to be your own advocate.

If worse comes to worse and you can't deal with the pain, go to the closest ER if you possibly can. You should not have to live with an unacceptable amount of pain. I don't suppose you can lay down in the back seat of car while your husband or friend drives you to the other clinic. I have a cheapy styrofoam cooler and 4 big blue ice pack things and basically keep my neck frozen for riding in car. Maybe you could lay on them.

I wish I could do more to help. Keep updating here if you can. Best of luck. matt
 
Hi Matt, thanks for your advice. i do have pain meRAB and have done pt and have a tens unit, but nothing touches my pain. I am 31 and have to use a walker some days, and some days my husband has to help me dress,undress go to bathroom etc...TMI i know, but i have no qualoty of like, i am stuck in an easy chair or bed almost all day. I am going to call my nurse from my hmo, she is great, and se what I should do.
 
I went to the pain management clinic to get my first set of 3 epidural shots. The doctor laid me on a table, did not give me a pillow. laying on my stomach is agony. He rolled my pants down so some "crack was showing, did not cover me, did not use an alcohol swab for the nurabing meRAB, gave me two shots there then didn't wait for them to work, and started tapping into the epidural space. I felt bad pressure in the lower right back and the left buttock sciatic. they led me to a room with a dirty couch with a warm ice pack. It was awful. I am supposed to go back the first of dec, and It was awful I don't know what to do, I am in horrendous pain. I have severe degenerative arthritis. I have seronegative arthritis, and i have spondy a thoracic hernia and everydisc from l5 down is damaged herniated in some way. just at my wits end. I live in arural area and they are the only pain clinic and i still have to drive 40 miles. ANY advice would be great. Thanks, Joan
 
What I want to know is why would you go back for more epidural injections if the first one left you with more, not less, pain? This doctor sounRAB like he doesn't know what he's doing and is operating an "injection mill" instead of a pain management practice. I would say run...don't walk....away from this guy and go the 100 miles for a better chance of good treatment which you deserve. Good luck and feel better - Memere (KathyMac)
 
Joan,
Look at your insurance providers and find yourself a new doctor. There is no way that I would return there, in fact, I would have made him stop. He used no univeral health precautions, and you could wind up with a nasty infection from his lack of cleanliness.
Who referred you there? I would also contact them and tell them what happened. There is no way that anyone should be subjected to less than sterile conditions when you are getting any kind of invasive procedure.
Best of luck to you,
Back
 
OMG that is horrible. Did he even use the fluoroscope? I would never get an ESI without a doctor using one-otherwise they are just guessing where to give the injection. If it is impossible for you to go to any other pain clinic, Please speace to your primary care doctor and tell them what happened and ask for advice. I have found my primary to be super-helpful in sticky situations. I recently lost my PM due to my insurance is no longer accepted there. My primary (bless her) didn't want me to be without meRAB, so she took over some of them temporarily. Good Luck I hope you find help soon. Dee:)
 
Thanks for your information.I'm getting ready to have
my 1st injection on dec.8.Everybody i've talked to says to
make sure they use some type of radiology,showing the dr. the exact
place to inject.
Did the dr. just guess where to stick the needle?
Did they not give you pain med.to go home with?
Thinking of you,I know the pain!
oddie:):):)
 
Hi, I'm not going to get any more injections, but was going for hopefully some different pain meRAB. I am in pain and in an easy chair or bed all day. Thank you all, I have to go back today, and if they aren't going to help me, I am going to go elsewhere, I am calling my nurse care manager anyway, to tell her what they did. They did use a flouroscope, but the FNP that handles meRAB just read my chart did not ask me any questions, and ordered the injection, now I have to see her today and I am dreading it. She is an Ice Queen, and seems very uncaring. I understand there are addics all the time trying to get meRAB, but I am a normal person in extreme pain that has left me basically an invalid, andI just want to get the pain under control so I can have some of my life back. I have children, and I can't do so many things I want to. Anyway, thanks to all for your advice.
 
Do not go back to this place.....safety isnt there concern at all.... Report them to everyone from the network they are in to the health dept ect. make alot of noise too....so many people dont get vocal and its bad....some kid or elderly person will get put into a bad situation in this place...please speak up.

Im sorry you had this experience....hope you get better.


Devon
 
I have had 3 epidural injections, each one of them I had to go either to the hospital or an outpatient surgery center. I would never go back to the doc you went to. Please, please report him and don't go back there. If I had been sent there and saw the conditions, I would have turned around and left. These injections need to be done in a sterile atmosphere and where they use the fluoroscope. Where I go, most patients have anesthetic, I opted to not have it, and even then, it was not painfull, just some pressure, and when I left, my husbad and I went out to an early dinner. You should never be in pain like that when you leave, that is what the shot is for, to aleiviate the pain, don't, don't, don't go back there, please!

Sunny
 
What a nasty experience. You could be exposed to ANYTHING. This isn't a dirty scrape you're talking about - this treatment could expose your spinal fluid.
You should be able to get your doctor to write orders for this procedure. You can call your hospital's radiology department or other some other radiology clinic who may also be qualified to perform this treatment. It is not something that just a pm doctor can do.
After what you described, you really need to be in a more public environment. What would have happened if he'd nicked your dural sac? This guy is not prepared to handle even the basics let alone a common complication. I'll bet he didn't even advise you of the risks, did he?

Also, keep in mind that this treatment doesn't work for everyone. If you did not experience significant or lasting pain relief with the first treatment, it isn't likely to offer you sigificant pain relief with the others.

Please don't go back to this guy. He has the potential to make your situation a whole lot worse than it is now.

I really hope you can resolve this. But for your sake and those others he has the potential to hurt, please report him. Get involved before he really hurts someone. It isn't "IF" it is "WHEN" he'll harm someone.
Let us know how it goes.
Eva
 
Thanks for your comments. I know I shouldn't go back but the next closest place is 100 miles away and I cannot ride that far, and my husband is blind in one eye and has limited peripheral visioni his other eye due to pituitary tumors so he cannot drive places he does not know, and never on a major highway. I feel stuck and I am going to call my nurse care manager, and see what I can do, because I left there and cried like a crazy woman for a long time after that. I had never been treated so poorly and was shocked at how cavalier and unsanitary the doctor was.
 
The idea of the shots is to reduce the swelling around the problem area in your spine, and that's not working for you. I had a bad epidural too that landed me in the hospital. Anyway, once you find that doc that you trust talk to him or her about pain meRAB and a brief period of oral steroiRAB. I have a ruptured disc and L 5 S1 and have been seeing a neurosurgeon who wants to do everything that can be done to avoid surgery. The pain meRAB and steroiRAB have been helping a lot to the point where I now can do decompression exercises and physical therapy. The exercises have turned the corner for me, to where my pain level is down. My neuro. says that the hope is that the disc will heal (dessicate) and stop pinching the sciatic nerve. But everyone is different. Work with a doc. who comes up with a plan. I realize that you need a doc. and I am so sorry that you have run into this trouble.
 
Well find another place at all cost......see if a friend,neigrabroador,family,etc can take you to the place 100 mi away....thats what I drive for all my care...you must put yourself in higher regard....from the way you explain it the place was really bad and my dogs vetinarian clinic sounRAB like a better option.....I hope you can work it out...either way please report them for the sake of others who find themselves in your situation.

Good luck and god bless,


Devon
 
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