Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group Cervical epidural

Cervical epidural....have you had it done? How did it work for you? What to expect? My first is going into C5-C6. I want to hear the good and the bad. Don't hold back.

Thanks,
Cris

Where is C5 & C6, I have had several in the SI joints, they thread the needle down thru your back while looking at the ultrasound machine...anything like that?

Lisa

Cris,
Hi there!
The surgeons in Nebraska say the same thing, put it off until I can not get out of the house. My stenosis is mild but worsening and I have 5 ruptured disks. One said, wait until I felt it was necessary to get the relief, because they would not be doing it twice.
Keep us posted, ok?
Br'er Lon

Hi cris
I haven't had one yet but a good friend of mine did. The first one helped a little but they did another one, actually 2 different areas, the second time and it helped her alot. As with any spinal epidurals, they are iffy. Sometimes they help sometimes they don't and sometimes they need to do more than once. Go into it with a pos. attitude. I have patients every week that have had epidurals and it can give some people good results.
Good Luck
Cindy

Here's my experience with one:

Neck Injection

I still haven't had major pain in my neck so I think it probably did help.

I don't the first and thus the second or third thing about them. I am anxious to read that you are in enough pain to be facing this possibility.

Otherwise just wanted to say Hi and wish you well. C-spine pain is the worst. Well next to the worst. THe worst actually is gettng struck by lightning while your motorcycle is getting hit by a beer truck on an evening where bee swarms are over-running the city.

Steve, why do I think you've actually experienced that!!

Hugs,

Cristina, I am so sorry to hear that you are in so much pain that they're doing one of these on you. I can't help with your question at all, but wanted to add my shoulder to the load.

Many hugs,

I have had neck epidurals 4 different times to my c3 through c7. All the joints in my neck are in very poor condition. As far as epidurals, I have had good results but only lasting 3 to 4 months and then the pain comes back. I wait as long as I can and then go in again. What worked for me is going in for trigger point massage. It helped me for almost four years until the last six months. My pain has come back with a vengence and nothing has been helping. My biggest concern is the shooting pains into my head that is almost crippling and started to interfere with my driving. I tried a pain management clinic and they even said that they cannot do anything for nerve compression short of narcotics and I wasn't too excited about that. The reason is that my joints are compressing my nerves in my c3 to c4 and my c4 to c5. So just over a week ago I had a double fusion surgery. I am hopeful that this will help. So far, so good. There are two kinds of pain you get in your neck. One is the nerve compression and the other is pain from wear where the tissue is iritated and causing inflamation. Either one causes inflamation but if it is not pain from the nerve, they have other alternatives that can help that.

As far as epidurals, they are very commonly used ahd a lot of people have received relief from them. You may have to come back for more but caution about the epidurals is that over several epidurals, it does destroy other good tissue and there can be other problems with some of your organs.

You could try several weeks of trigger point massage. It did help me hold off for nearly four years.

I hope this makes some sense. I am on some pain meds and cannot look down at my key board. That combination makes it more of a challenge.
Hope you find something that helps.
Bill

Hey Cris,

Amazing timing on this Q--my ex just had one of these today! (it is very late and I was just planning on reading a few posts, not responding, so stay with me if I stray all over the place or fill the screen with typos!) She has been dealing with terrible neck and shoulder muscle pain caused by her diabetes (a long--but pretty fascinating--story I'll skip here) for over two years now and had tried every treatment method. FInally, her PCP sent her to a doc who gives epidurals or botox injections to see if that would help.

Early results make it appear that the shot is helping, although it is hard to tell right now. I say "appear" because (ok, here's the bad with the good Cris) the shot itself is causing her so much new pain right now that it's hard to tell! When she left the doc's office, she felt amazing--she said she was pain-free in her back for the first time in more than two years. Just as we got home, however, the lidocaine used to numb the area so she wouldn't feel the shot itself wore off, and in minutes, she was in intense pain at the site of the shot (it was given right around C-6 or C-7, it appears). She is generally very sensitive to any "invasive" shot like this, and this one has been no exception. Her back hurt a lot all day and all night, although she was able to find comfortable positions lying down and did pretty well that way. Sitting up caused severe pain, however, as did walking upright. If she had to get up and walk, she literally had to mimic me at my worst, walking in a very bent over position; this allowed her to walk with almost no pain.

The pain she is experiencing was to be expected and was exactly what her doctor told her she would have--it would likely last three to four days, he said. One added note, however: If you experience migraines on any kind of regular basis, the shot might trigger one for you, as it touched off a big one for my wife (the doc also warned this might happen). Had she known in advance that migraines were a possible side effect of the shot, she would have taken her Relpack (don't know spelling on this--it's her migraine med she is supposed to take the minute she feels a migraine starting), which usually nips her headaches in the bud and ends her pain before it gets a chance to dig in. Since she didn't know, she had the headache for hours today and had to take three doses of the Relpack to get it to go away.

Behind all the shot pain, however, she is very optimistic about what she feels. She says that it seems as if almost all of her original pain is gone, and that she can't wait for the shot pain to dissipate so she can see for sure if the shot did its job. She is very excited by what she thinks is happening, and it appears right now that the shots will help her a great deal when NOTHING else would help. She goes back in two weeks to get a second shot, which is supposed to finish the job this one started and wipe out any pain that is left. While she has hated the intense pain she's had today as a direct result of the shot, I believe she would do it again in a heartbeat because of what appears to be the start of total pain relief in her back, which she hasn't felt in forever.

Good luck Cristine, and I hope your shot works as well as my ex's did!

Brad