bigsandy

Hi Brian, No, neither one of my Dr. offered me any medication. Just told me to take Aleve or something like that. When I first had my fusion I was taking Hydrocodone or something like it but a little stronger. They won't re-new that but it seems like the only thing that helped.

I was seeing a quack dr. that didn't want to do any but give me trigger point injections that did nothing. I jumped at the chance of a facet joint injection because they used the florascope and could see exact point of where the stuff was going. And I had to go back to a different Dr. to find out that there was a facet joint involved in the first place.

I refused to "just live with" statement from the Dr. that did the surgery.

Since I did have a little break from the pain from the first facet joint injection, about three months, I thought I'd go for another one. Well, that one didn't work, wonder why the Dr. told me "good luck" when he was finished. Is it a hit or miss? It was supposed to be in the right place, which I questioning because of the placement of the injection sites.

Then when the first one took I had looked at a few places for information about the rf ablation. When I asked the Dr. who did the injections he said he hadn't had any request for them in the past and was hesitant to do that in the neck area anyway and told me to find someone else who would.

What, is this whole thing with pain management is just a turkeyshoot?

I know it's all HUGE money, I have seen the bills sent to my insurance company. Maybe they don't want it to work either cause they all would be without jobs too.

The triggerpoint injections cost me $100 a wack co-pay because they were done in the hospital, BIG mistake on my part and they didn't even work. I am so angry. Facet injections being done in Radiology is only costing me $25 each co-pay. They could charge me nothing it's all how it is billed.

I know there are only so many injections they can do in a specific time period. They didn't tell me how many they were planning. I took it as when it wears off I make another appointment.

I have been getting shots in my elbow and thumb too. Knock on wood the ones in my thumb lasted almost a year, my elbow not quite as long.

The pain in my shoulder that stems from my neck kills me all the time. I don't know where to go from here. All I know is that I'm not doing surgery again. Not for a very long time at the least.

Sandy!