I have had number of them over the years and none ever did any good. It helps if the doc knows exactly where to put it.

@blowerk1216

Yes. I've had three over the course of 3 years. Each has been very helpful.

@blowerk1216 - glad to see you got some input from @bajjerfan. I wanted to let you know I moved your post here so that you could chat with more Mayo Clinic Connect members who've talked about steroid epidural injections for pain, such as @maryanne7 @marylin14 @labgirl and others. @jenniferhunter also may have some thoughts for you:

- Feedback on my Epidural https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/feedback-on-my-epidural/

@blowerk1216
Yes, 2 out of a possible 3. Wonderful pain relief. My injections were for a herniated disc in lower spine. I was 20 years younger then. Maybe that makes a difference?

@blowerk1216 Good morning, I have had 3 injections in my spine over the past 2 1/2 years. The first two were at the T12-L1 area, and there was no difference in my pain, not better, but not worse. I just had the 3rd injection on February 10th, so about 6 weeks ago now. There are two differences; it hurt a lot during the injection, which the other two did not; 48 hours after the injection, I was in more pain than before the injection. And now, 6 weeks later, I am still in more pain.

I also know someone that had two epidurals for his spine, the second one because the first gave him relief. After the second one, he was almost back to his normal self. It's very difficult to compare when dealing with these things, everyone will have their own experience. But I wanted to write to let you know the injections can work if you want to take the chance.

@blowerk1216 My injection was diagnostic and it did reduce pain from spinal issues, but it also caused new pain because I had a bad reaction to it. I think I was allergic to something in the injection. I was getting burning electrical pain shooting into my hand. That took about 6 weeks to resolve. I only had 5 days of relief before my normal pain started returning slowly. A few weeks later all that pain was back with the added pains into my hand.

@blowerk1216, I had a L3 ESI last June 2025. It took several weeks to work. It did seem to help some. Make sure you check out the doctors experience. I would recommend getting it done in a real pain management center. One that does it all day everyday. I used to work in interventional pain medicine. I saw some scary doctors that should not be performing the procedure. Do your due diligence before hopping on the table.