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← Return to Epidural Injections
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Spine Health | Last Active: Aug 5, 2023 | Replies (54)
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Steroids have been around for a very long time and do wonders for acute pain and many other illnesses. Many people take steroids on a regular bases for select disease processes related to inflammation. As others have stated it does destroy bone so it’s limited in epidural and other areas. Unfortunately it does destroy organs, blood vessels and other damage with long term use. But it is an effective drug with wide use, just be cautious.
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My experience is that oral steroids were not recommended for neck pain, at least for a 74 year old female with what went from acute to chronic neck pain but no evident disk herniation. The protocols were facet joint injections and medial branch blocks with perhaps a physician bias toward one or the other.
I've been reading spine pain posts on Connect for months and there is such a wide range of pain situations and physician protocols. The same meds keep coming up, but patients' responses to them are SO different. It seems like a lot of meds get recommended and used. Use of meds is a personal patient/doc decision but for me no med ever worked well enough to continue.
All I know at this particular point in my year long quest for neck and head pain relief is that the only thing that has actually diminished (but not totally relieved) my neck and head pain is a course of Dexamethasone. No injection or prescribed med has done the same for me.
I find that outcome both puzzling and curious and I will continue to seek more information as to why. I'll welcome anyone else's thoughts on this.