Hello Jessi-Lea,

No, an epidural injection given properly should not cause you pain, it should reduce your pain.

Have you talked to your doctor as soon as this pain began after your epidural? If not, he/she does need to know. If you have spoken with your doctor, did he/she give you their opinion on the pain and what you should do?

Where did the doctor give you your epidural? Some are given through an entrance close to the tailbone.

Please let us know some more detail. Thanks

RichT

My 3rd epidural injection caused my lower back pain. The first two times, I recovered from my lower back pain, but the 3d time I didn't. I believe the physican who administered it wasn't very good. She had trouble doing it and needed her co-worker to help out. He was the one that I wanted to use, but many pregnant women that day needed it. Hospital called backup and it was this female doctor that came in to help. It hurt so much when she did it. With help it took about 45 minutes for her to do it. The other two epidural took only less than 15 minutes to complete with way less pain...........

Hello SVMom,

You have confirmed what I have known for some time now - THAT the person giving you an ESI is a VERY important part of the equation as to whether the injection works or not AND the "ease" of the injection.

MY PM doc moved from my area to TX. NO WAY am I going to permit ANY other doctor or PA to give me an ESI. NO WAY!!!! With him I'm in the ESI room for a total of 10 minutes, and about 1-2 minutes of that is the injection itself. A bit of discomfort, but that is all.

Next go around make SURE the doc you want to give you the ESI IS the doc that actually does it. NO ONE ELSE. PERIOD!!!!!! SVMom, I can't stress that strong enough.

I wish you the best.

Should you wish to continue communications do send me a PM.

I hope all goes well for you.

RichT

It is not uncommon to have some discomfort at the injection site after having and an epidural done. That "pain", discomfort will increase with bending over.
It is recommended that you apply ice to the area of the injection site.

If you are having that much pain, then you should be calling your doctor right away about it.

It is also possible that an epidural can increase your pain instead of helping to relieve it.

That information should have been provided to you before you had the epidural done and signed the consent form to have the epidural done.

siliconvalleymom21st, If there was that much difficulty doing the epidural and another doctor had to be called in, that is the time you should have said "thanks, but no thanks", and high tailed it out of there.

Something was not right with what they where doing. Either neither doctor knew what they where doing, they where not using a floroscope to be sure they where injecting the epidural into the correct location or, there is something more going on with your spine and needs to be evaluated by a spine surgeon and an MRI obtained.

It is possible that you have built up scar tissue in the area that the injection was supposed to go and the needle could not get through the scar tissue.

Either way, there is absolutely no way, you should have had to go through what you went through, and you should not go back there ever again to have an epidural done.

RichT. nice to see you posting again.

Sorry to hear your PM doc has moved away. There are many, many excellent pain management doctors that can provide the same pain relief for you.
You should ask the pain management doctor you where using for a name that he would trust to give them to you.
Otherwise you will end up in pain and have no pain relief.

Also, a PA is not qualified to administer and spinal epidural injection. Only a trained MD is qualified to administer them.

Fran

Hello Fran,

Thanks for your thoughts. However, I don't need another "variable" by introducing a new PM doc. I will stay with Dr. K all the way until they no longer work.

Take care.

RichT

Rich, does that mean you will fly to Texas to get an epidural injection?

Fran