Last post Wed, Apr 16 2008 9:23 PM by ORTHOSURG. 48 replies.
I absolutely agree that swimming or other aqua exercise is great! I do not want to in any way diminish physical forms of pain reduction by remarking on "alternative medicine." I myself go to a "free swim" nearly daily, where, although I am in a wheelchair on land, I can do amazing things in the water. It is a way to be free with my body, and a joy for me. Dance therapists have a saying that "the mind will not move if the body doesn't move." I think they are right.
Ive had those injections as well, They never helped me , only made me worse.Im afraid to have anymore of them done and now I have to give up my pain management because I refuse to have the injections. Every time they do that to me..The pain in my back gets 100% worse and the pain meds do not help when its that bad. I guess they do work for some people, but not for me at all. Im still searching for some kind of non operative relief, but as of now , no luck. If anyone has any sugggestions, Im open to hear them,
Thanks,
Donna
Donna, you sound like my husband. This last epi he had did NOTHING for him. Out of 4 epidurals, he's gotten relief from only one, and it was very limited relief. He has decided NOT to return to his Pain Management doc, as the doc has all ready told him "No more epi's...you need surgery." Well, he sure isn't willing to just jump into surgery....he is trying to live it. Like you, the pain increases after each injection, even though his Pain doc tells him he'll get relief, "this time".... He does take an occassional pain med, but tries really hard not to. His doc refuses to give him anymore, even though they help him get thru a day at his job. Very physically demanding. I stopped having them, also. It's like sticking a bandaid over a huge gash!! Those epi's cost $4,000, and that's not even the docs fees included. No wonder they push them...they stand to make a small fortune dragging out a condition.
Have you ever considered accupuncture? Try swimming, too. Swimming helped me a lot. Just the stretching aspect of swimming made me feel tons better, and I was far less stiff in the AM's....
These docs amaze me with their demanding "we" have the epidurals's over & over...when they don't work. For those few that DO get relief from them, cool.....for those that are not getting relief, stop wasting your time and money and your insurance companies money.
Unfortunately, epidurals do not work sometimes for a variety of reasons. Here are a few:
You are getting a "blind" epidural, withut the use of a C-Arm image. Studies have shown that there is a 30% miss rate doing epidurals blind. All that is it doing is giving you systemic steroids, which actually may help some, but not really.... If you are diabetic, you now have to struggle with a higher blodd sugar for no good reason then.
You may have disk scarring. Epidurals may help some, but there are other techniques and approaches to the spine to break up the scarring, although with limited success.
You may have an extruded disk or disk fragment. Only surgery will relieve this. Not epidurals, not acupuncture, not biofeedback, or any other method. This is a mechanical issue, and ONLY can be relieved by surgery. The longer a disk fragment sits out there, the more scarring you can have. For example, if you have a bad gallblader, and it is full of stones, the only option and relief is to take the offending organ OUT! No pills, cremes, meditations, etc are going to fix it.
Your doctor may be a buffoon, and too arrogant to try something different (TENS, therapy, etc.), or to get another opinion.. True pain management includes long term medication management for some when there is no other option. This included low dose narcotics to get you through the day and working. A LOT of docs don't like to do this, there i sless money in it, and they are afraid of scrutiny by the DEA and Feds. Double whammy for the poor patient because of a few dishonest or mercenary docs.
I agree with the swimming and stretching advice on this thread. If possible this can help keep you loose and also help oxygen saturation for you. Always a plus. There was some research that tied smoking into continued low grade low back pain, but probably not enough evidence yet.
Good luck, this is a tough problem for many.
