Has anyone had a bad reaction to a spinal epidural?

@sparklegram Welcome to connect where we try to help with others about disease we have . I have had plenty of Epidurals but never had any bad reactions Talk to the Dr. and find out if it is the same medication this is where I would start Let us know ,we care at connect

@sparklegram I had a bad reaction to an epidural caused by the pressure of the injected steroid fluid that had nowhere to go. I had severe stabbing electric shock pains that went on for a couple months. They were every couple minutes at the beginning and as time went on they got farther apart. I refused to do any more epidural injections. They do have some significant risks, and are not approved by the FDA.

I had 3 on my neck and felt the pressure of the medication (very painfull), but I know that my neck was very swollen due to the pinched nerve. I remember telling my husband I will not do this again. I applied ice and took Tylenol and the next day felt some what better. By day 5 is when I really noticed improvement (about 50%). And now I say" yes, i will do injections again. Prior to the injections I have been miserable with neck, shoulder, back and leg pain for a looong time.

I had one done in my lumbar area and this has caused nerve pain in my left hip and leg ever since. Doc must have damaged the nerve root. Never again will I have this procedure. Any ideas on how to reduce nerve pain?

@koesch01 I'm sorry this happened to you. Is this a recent change that happened right after the epidural injection or has this been more of a long term problem? What I might suggest is a work up with a spine specialist and a physical therapy evaluation. There may be a different reason for the pain that can be addressed with treatment. I have made mistakes before thinking a pain was caused by sinus problems and in fact, it was a tooth. That kept me from seeing my dentist because I thought I knew the answer. It gets tricky when there are overlapping symptoms caused by different problems. Nerve problems can be tricky too and seem like spine problems when they are not or they can be spine problems that cause pain elsewhere in the body.

This link has information about lumbar plexus compression syndrome.
https://mskneurology.com/identify-treat-lumbar-plexus-compression-syndrome-lpcs/
Do you have more information you can share?

Thanks for your reply. The constant nerve pain in my left hip and leg started right after the injection. Also, the shot itself was one of the worst pain I ever had. I should have demanded he stop. I manned up and took it. Big mistake. I am seeing my Neurosurgeon this Friday to discuss surgery. I have had Physical Therapy twice a week since Feb 2020. It has helped me up to when I had the injections. What types of surgery do you recommend?

When they injected my husband's spine (in his neck) the doc kept him for about 20 minutes and a nurse kept checking his feet before they let him leave. By the time we got home (45 minutes later) he was in horrible pain and has been ever since. When seeing another specialist for spinal stenosis he was told that injection never should have affected his feet, which made us feel that the doc knew it didn't go right. It was supposed to relieve pain on his right side but crossed over to the left. To start with he had pain in his left arm, lower back, hip, leg and feet. It felt as if there was ice water down his legs and into his feet. He has every symptom of arachnoiditis - every single one. When we tried to contact the surgeon who ordered the injection, they told us he was no longer his patient. So - he lived with it - day after day for the rest of his life. In our opinion they should stop giving these spinal injections. How many other people have been damaged by them?

@janie6696 Thank you for for sharing your experience. I won't do another spinal injection and they have real risks. The injections are supposed to always be placed outside of the dura which is the covering on the brain and spinal cord. I do know from my own experience of being a patient with spinal cord compression, that the symptoms and pain the compression caused did affect the rest of my body on both sides. I had pain everywhere in my body including both feet which was caused by the spinal cord compression at C5/C6. I had bone spurs and a herniated disc that were left paracentral, so slightly off center to the left. It also depended how I moved or turned my head which changed the places I felt pain. If anything touches the spinal cord, it can cause damage and the spinal cord is floating in spinal fluid which helps to cushion it. My cervical spine surgery removed the bone spurs and disc that were pressing into it relieving the pressure and it was done before there was serious compression, but there was no fluid space left. The surgery for cervical stenosis resolved all my pain symptoms in my body and I had no more pain in my legs or feet. A lot of spine surgeons miss that connection and it is called "funicular pain" or referred pain. There is no test for this except that when surgery fixes all the pain, then you know that the cervical spinal stenosis was the cause of that pain.

I'm sorry that the doctor didn't take responsibility and abandoned your husband. As patients we come to be helped and we put our trust in our providers. I had a surgeon dump me too as a patient after he did carpal tunnel surgery which did not fix all the symptoms. I came back to him with my hands turning blue and he took my pulse, told me I was fine, and wrote in my records that I was malingering and didn't want to go back to work. He had completely missed that I also had thoracic outlet syndrome which does interrupt blood flow in the arms and causes overlapping symptoms with carpal tunnel syndrome. When I came back to him with the TOS diagnosis, he refused to let me go to physical therapy claiming he would not know if it would help me or not. Well, at least that was true. He just wanted to get rid of me as fast as possible. I had to find a new doctor who did send me to physical therapy.

With the availability of internet searches, it is worth looking up information to see if a doctor has disciplinary actions against them with the state's medical board. I also trust the opinions and recommendations of my doctors who have excellent reputations and who have done well with my care. As patients, we can also just say no as long as we fully understand the risks and consequences of our decisions. Spinal injections may help reduce inflammation and pain temporarily, but it doesn't fix the problem that is causing the pain, and the steroids are not FDA approved for injections into the spine. Another thing to consider is that for the surgeon there are risks too, and they don't want to fail. They can postpone surgeries by sending patients for injections instead which puts the surgeon's wishes first, not the patient's needs. I have learned not to blindly trust, but to ask questions and advocate for myself. I have to agree with you, as I think spinal injections are too risky for something that may have a temporary benefit or no benefit.

The injection that caused the damage was done before his spinal stenosis surgeries. He had the spinal stenosis surgery in his neck and another in his lower back (at the same time). When the surgeon got in there she discovered a ruptured disc and fixed that at the same time. She should have been aware of that ahead of time but the xray department neglected to send the xray of that to her like they had been asked to do. It gets discouraging when the medical profession damages you.

Thank you!