Has anyone else had an injection into there spine?

Hi Caroline

The injection really help the pain,I've had mine four days ago and thank god I'm pain free right now.I don't know how long the injection last it may last a long time ,a short time or it may not help that's what I read on the forum but since I had mine done on Tuesday I'm pain free.hope that helps you.good luck next week

Thank you yes it does vary. Fingers crossed I'll be alot better for a while. Hoping less drugs ....

I had injections quite a while ago but I was one of the unlucky ones that got no relief! I hope they work for you and you don’t need tablets! What tablets have you been given?

Linda x

Hi I'm on about four for pain plus meloxicam. Twisted spine main problem. Worth a shot lol literally.

Not hoping for much but at least worth trying. I'm on gabapentin only two weeks so far but feel a bit more perkier.

Case one was severe sciatica down one leg.  Nothing worked.  Turned out to be a bone spur crushing the sciatic nerve root at L4/L5.  Quick spur removal and a decompressive laminectomy fixed that very quickly.

Case two was spinal foraminal stenosis at L2/L3.  Neuro did a remarkable Lateral Lumbar Interbody Fusion (LLIF).  Immediate relief, one night stay, no rehab, no brace.

In both cases, nothing but the surgeries would fix the problem.

Hi Caroline,

There are a couple of different types of injections they can do into your spine, such as epidural and facet blocks, as well as others.  Since it sounds like this is your first time it is probably an epidural spinal injection.  Regardless, these are extremely common procedures, very low risk.  They can involve some discomfort when performed, especially if you don't receive some type of conscious sedation, but it only takes a couple of minutes and then it is over.  There isn't much lingering pain once it is done and you have gone home, just a tiny amount of pain at the injection site for a few days.

The amount of overall pain relief from the injection, as well as how long that relief lasts for, is very variable.  For most people the relief they get rarely works for more than three months - sometimes it only lasts a week or two.  With most of the shots you can have them repeatedly over time although there is often a limit as to how many you can have in a single year. I've been told (and it's been my experience), that you get your best and longest relief with your first shot and then it gets less and less with future shots.

From what I've seen and heard from listening to others (and again it's been my personal experience too), pain relief injections into your spine are eventually seen by the people who get them as frustrating and disappointing.  For all the cost, hassle and discomfort of the procedures they seem to give only limited and very short-term overall pain relief.

There are other procedures to talk to your doctor about, such as minimally invasive surgery, radio frequency ablation or even a spinal cord stimulator (assuming you've tried the conservative remedies of physical therapy and pain medications and they aren't enough). But under most insurance plans (or non-US health services), they typically want to see you try the epidural injections first a couple of times before they will try the other, more aggressive options.  So you might as well go through with at least two of the spinal injections, that's the usual minimum the insurance companies want to see before they will approve any more aggressive treatments.

Oh and here's another hint - most insurance companies set the standard that you get at least 50% or more pain reduction, for at least a month, from the first one or two spinal injections for them to be convinced that the more aggressive procedures will help you.  I'm not saying to lie about your experience to your doctor, just understand that that is what they want to hear from you before they try anything more serious later.

Hope that is useful - Bob

Ok thanks yes I believe it's the one you said. I'm having sedation but it won't do much as I seem to be immune to most meds now. Hopefully less painful than the CT mylogram needle that was agony. Took ages I'll update when I'm done x

Caroline - Good luck with the procedure.  I too am fairly immune to the standard conscious sedation meds, especially fentanyl (less immune to propofol). I was having an upper endoscopy once (scoping down my throat and into my stomach) and I thought I was out of it during the procedure but the gastroenterologist cancelled the procedure halfway through it and rescheduled me for general anesthesia - he said I kept taking swings at him! And he told me I was at the maximum level of sedation medications for my age and weight, so he gave up and rescheduled to have me fully knocked out.

One thing I've found that helps is to tell the person performing your sedation (hopefully an anesthesiologist) that you have a long history of prescribed opiate use for pain and that you tend to be immune to normal levels of sedation medication.  If it's a good doctor they will take that into account and make a stronger "cocktail" for you to help you relax. That's what happened with me earlier this year when I had a colonoscopy - the anesthesiologist took that into account, promised me a stronger cocktail, and I slept like a baby!

Remember to talk to your pain doctor about the kinds of procedures that can be considered after you have a couple of epidural steroid injections, and the role those steroid injections play in qualifying you for those more aggressive procedures.  In particular be sure to talk to him about a "radio frequency ablation."  It's a procedure equivalent in nature to the epidural injection but it can provide meaningful pain relief for up to 9 to 12 months, which is much better than the 1 to 3 months of relief that the epidural steroid injections typically provide.  The only downside is that you have to prove you are a viable candidate for ablation by having at least two successful epidural steroid injections.  Good luck!