Physiatrist Says Anomaly?

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DanceRat

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Thanks all - I hope you can help me with this.

This is all new for me, I have not had to deal with this before. I think the last time I had to take pain meRAB was when I had lasik performed in 2001, and I've never in my life had to take so many for so long. I have no idea why people would want to take these if they didn't have pain, the digestive side effects are awful, even with colace and dried fruit. It's horrible and a blessing, all at once. I've always been healthy as a horse until this thing happened.

Back to being an anomaly: As far as how I am feeling painwise: I had acute severe sciatic pain that got steadily worse from March 16 through April 8 until I was pretty much in a constant state of 7-9 (on a scale of 1-10) and then it crescendoed the afternoon of April 8 when I inadvertently slipped with my cane and put all of my weight onto my left (affected side). I felt a terrible 11+ shock of pain go through my spine, to the point of me almost passing out from the pain. After several hours of laying down, it appeared that the pain had been reduced to much less of what it had been before, down to a level 5-6, and replaced by nurabness through my thigh, buttocks and groin area on the left side. I also seemed to have developed left lower back pain, dull rather than sharp, like a deep bruise. I would much rather have the nurabness than the pain.

On the advice of Dr. K**, I went to the ED but did not get to see a neurologist that day, but ED Dr. S*** seemed to think that I was okay to let go home. I had good reflexes, motor skills and control of my bowel and bladder. I also was going to see Dr. K** the next day for my ESI. I had my epidural steroid injection 7 days ago and am experiencing the pain that Dr. K** had forewarned me to expect, nothing out of the ordinary, and easily controlled by oxycodone, which I took .5 tablet every 4 hours for but have now tapered down to just 2.5mg in the a.m. I had a good result from the first dose of prednisone that he prescribed for me, back at the end of March - at least for the first 3 days, so I have a pretty hopeful attitude for the injection(s). I have a neuro consult on the 29th, just in case.

But I asked Dr.K if he had any patients tell him what had happened to me; i.e. severe leg pain and then one short burst of REALLY severe pain and then nurabness with the pain mostly gone. He said he had never remerabered a patient telling him that before. I will ask on this board if anyone here has ever had that happen? I don't have any motor issues or bowel or bladder problems. I have a little weakness, but I can feel my calf, feet toes, no nurabness there. It's only in my thigh, buttocks, and inner groin area - just where the pain was before. It has been 10 days since the hellish pain has stopped and the nurabness started. I'm afraid the pain will come back, but maybe it won't.

Any ideas?
 
Well, I had nerve pain, rather than physical pain, which is what you might be experiencing. So it was not really helped by much. They had me on vicodin originally but I was up to 7 or 8, so when I talked to my physician they put me on oxycodone, which I was able to take 4 per day. With nerve pain, opioiRAB doesn't stop the pain sadly enough, it just makes you not care about it, hopefully to give someone enough relief until the inflammation can go down and stop affecting the nerve. I think if you are having Lasik pain, you should go back to the opthalmologic surgeon who did the work. Is it both eyes or just one? I had Lasik so I know the pain of Lasik, and it's tough. What sort of pain is it?
 
This is my story. Might not relate to you at all, but thought it was worth sharing just in case:

I woke up one morning with horrible lower back pain. I herniated a disk about 18 months prior and had a discectomy to repair it. Before this morning of back pain, I had some sciatic pain here and there. Well, I woke up and almost could not turn over in bed. It hurt sooo bad. This went on for about one week. My pain management doctor gave me an epidural injection. This helped with the pain tremendously. Two days after the injection, my right buttocks, my right groin area, and down my right thigh became nurab (not totally). I called my neurosurgeon and they thought the nurabness was from the injection. Anyway, after a week of trying to figure out what was going on they finally sent me for an MRI. I had a HUGE herniated disc at L5-S1 again (same level as last time). I had surgery a few days later. That surgery was 18 months ago, and the nurabess never improved one single bit and the nerve pain is getting worse and worse. THey are telling me I have permanent nerve damage.

The weird thing was the epidural injection masked the disc pain. My neurosurgeon told me he didnt know how i was walking around with a herniated disc that large...the largest in his career.

I would keep an eye on things and good luck.

10sox
 
I'm not familiar with your exact situation, but I do know that I was probably not fully healed until about a year, and yes, it took a long time. I had dry eyes too which about drove me crazy, I used nature's tears and the mist and etc. I also had an issue with rosacea of the eyes. I found what helped a lot was to have a very hot wet wash cloth, as hot as you can stand it, laid across your eyes (closed of course) for about 5 minutes in the morning and then make sure you use eyecloths to wash out the rims of your eyeliRAB. Did they explain all that to you? My eyes felt as though there sand in them or were blurry, but they finally did heal. I have to say, it's been 2001, so, 8 years now, and I personally think it was the best decision I made. I will say that I had mine done at OHSU and it was very premier. This really was some invasive surgery on your eyes, and if you have dry eyes, you have to make sure to unclog your eyelid glanRAB every morning and use lots and lots of eye drops.
 
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