Potential Turning Point

This afternoon I finally had my much anticipated and awaited epidural steroid injection, and I'm very hopeful that today is a turning point in the treatment of my back issues! We saw a highly recommended anesthesiologist in town, and he was super informative and encouraging. Not only did he explain the whole process thoroughly and answer all of our questions, but he was also very confident about the procedure being exactly what I need to solve my nerve inflammation problem! I'd read that only about 50% of people are helped by epidural injections, but Dr. N. said that his experience has been that about 75% of his patients do a series of 2 or 3 injections and then never have problems again. We're praying that I fall into that 75 percent! :)

For those of you who were a little freaked out by the idea of me having a needle stuck in my spine, the injection itself was really rather uneventful, in case you were wondering. I guess there's only about a 2-4 mm space where the needle can go, which means that they obviously have to be super careful, but they have some special kind of syringe which makes it possible for him to be that accurate. He numbed the skin on my back, then stuck me with a needle full of Novocaine to numb the whole area, then filled the epidural space with a syringe full of saline to open up the area so that the steroid could flow freely, then stuck me with the syringe full of the steroid. The only uncomfortable part was when they actually shoot the steroid in--the nurse told me it would happen, but you feel this painful pressure down your leg that kind of makes it feel like your leg's going to explode. It didn't last too terribly long though, so it really wasn't that bad at all!

The steroid they use is time-released drug which is supposed to peak at 2 weeks, at which time you come back for a second epidural unless you're already 95% better. Apparently there are a handful of people who have a complete recovery after only one injection, but most people need 2 to 3, or sometimes even 4 or 5. The steroid takes a couple days to start working, but in 2-4 days I should start noticing an improvement, and then I can go back to any normal activities that I feel up to doing! I'm definitely ready to be active again!