After a couple of years of having the Dr do nerve root injections because I fell, I'm in bad shape still & alot of pain in my groin & leg. I have looked on the net for other people who are going thru the same thing & see that alot of times when a Dr does that he by mistake hits a nerve w/the needle & it's damaged then. I have tried so many things for pain & have asked so many people if there is a certain kind of Dr that could help me. I'm tired of living in pain. If anyone knows or can suggest a certain kind of Dr please let me know. Thank you
Have you been treated by an orthopedic spine surgeon? This is not to be confused with a regular orthopedic doctor who does other bone things. It is an orthopedic surgeon with additional fellowship training in problems of the neck and back. I think this would be the best type of doctor to go to for a diagnosis, unless you have already done this and were told they couldn't help you.
If a patient is having the injection done under fluoroscopy, there is no reason why the doctor should hit a nerve, as you suggest happens often. Sometimes the pressure is such that the patient feels like the nerve has been hit, but it should not actually get nicked. Even when doing a nerve root block, the nerve itself is not injected. The numbing agent is floated in next to the nerve.
Do you know what type of damage was done when you fell?
The nerve root injections are NO JOKE!! I had that done a couple weeks ago and it was a "test" for the Doc to see if it helped with the pain in my leg/grion area. I got about 50% of pain gone from it ... So I go Jan 4th now and he's going to burn the nerves. He said this SHOULD last for up to 6 months before they grow back and I'd have to have it done again. From what I'm told by the Ortho and Pain Management Doc... that spinal stenosis is the cause for the leg/groin pain that makes it almost impossible to do daily activites. The only thing that makes it better for me is bending over a shopping cart or bending over the sink while doing dishes. I had surgery on Sept 22nd of this year to "fix"it and I hurt worse now than I did before I had it. Looking back.. I thought I was at my end with the pain before surgery... knowing what I know now... I'd wait longer. Good luck!! I know your pain!!
You don't necessarily have to live with spinal stenosis. It depends on where the stenosis is located, how much it is causing neural compression, etc. Surgery is done to open up the central canal or neuroforamina. I had surgery for stenosis when I had surgery to fuse L4-L5, for example.
I had surgery for it by an Ortho on Sept 22nd of this year. Surgery was supposed to clean out the area for the nerves. I recovered quickly from the surgery, not using even all of my pain meds. For about two weeks after surgery I felt like finally I might be back to "normal" Then the same exact pain started to come back about two to three weeks after, only worse than before surgery. I'm now seeing a pain management Dr, who did the whole nerve root injections as a test. If the injections worked he was going to burn the nerves... I go Jan 4th for that so we'll see what that does for me. It's pretty sad to think of having to live life with spinal stenosis... I understand that...it's horrible pain and a struggle to get through each and every day. I hope for your sake you can find some comfort... never give up!
While I do not have spinal stenosis, I do have Facet Joint Syndrome, and just went through the RF Ablation (burning the nerves). I had very good success with this. I had gone through two diagnostic injections prior to confirm the doc's thoughts, and had very good luck with those, which prompted the RF Ablation. I am almost completely pain free now, have been able to increase my activities again, and have started expanding my stretching exercises and adding in strengthening exercises.
Regarding the procedure itself, the doc gave me oxycodone following the procedure for pain, and I used hardly any of those. I took a couple the first two days or so, and then was able to go to the Tylenol 3's he had given me previously. I used the muscle relaxers more than the pain meds, since irritated nerves can cause muscle spasms.
I still have some issues in my right hip, but I have some SI Joint problems, along with a transitional vertebra with a bony protrusion on the right side that sits over but is not fused to my sacrum. We may have to do something about that, unless there are some exercises that doc can suggest to keep that area on a leash.
It took me 6 years to get here, and had doctors at two different clinics completely ignore the answers that were in the results from my first MRI . . . there was reference to the facet joint issue in the MRI, but they didn't bother to even explore that. It's nice to have some answers, even if I will never be completely pain free, I can at least do things again!
