@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.