GrinandBarrett

I have an injection scheduled for Tues next week for a herniated L5-S1 disc. Anyone have experiance with this.
I'm hoping this will take care of the pain I'm having so I can get back to work. Any advice would be great.

Matt

CustomRigger101

make you feel like a stong man.. just becarful with the tabs they give you for the pain.. i have a bad back i personally can't stand the 5/500 ox tabs they give me for more than a week.. just don't like them.. but dislike the pain more..

Tricky919

Just watch that the pain might go away and the damage is masked. I took injections in my elbow and felt good for like 4 months and then it was worse.....Take it slow.........

fountain1fan

IT CAN BENIFIT SOME PATIENTS, MAY SLOW THE NEED FOR SURGERY,TRUST IN YOUR DOCTOR.MRS FOUNTAIN1FAN

Havasu Cig

I had 6 injections in my spine for herniated disc's (L-4,
L-5, & S-1). They took a few days to work but helped out a lot with the pain.

The worst part of the injections for me was the actual fluid going in. The insertion of the needle was not bad at all, but when they started injecting the Cortizon (sp) I had some increased sciatic pain. it was well worth it though. Better than living on Vicodin.

GrinandBarrett

Thank you all for your input. I understand about the Vicodin, we call it doing the Brett Favre here in Wisconsin. I have the pain managed right now but I haven't worked since Dec 9th and my job as an electrician requires bending quite often and the pain can flare up in an instant and will put me on the floor unable to walk or sit down. The sharp pain down the back of my leg tends to put me to my knees. Hopefully the injection will allow me to go back to work soon.

Matt

Pure Energy

Steroids are an anti-inflamatory, used to reduce swelling. Can work well for the short term, but too many injections can prove to worsen the problem. My Mother has bad knees. When she would travel with my Father she would get an injection the day before so she would be able to walk with less pain. After about 10 days they were back to the way they were before the injection.

Basically treats the symptom but not the problem.

Raylar

Herniated my disk between L4 -L5 in 93 racing these puppies, spent 4 months on drugs fooling around with epidurals, steriods, traction, nothing helped. Got smart saw a great orthepic surgeon, got an MRI, sure enough, disk in three pieces, one piece about to cut my syatic nerve in half( makes for a dead leg)! Had a fusion surgery L4, L5, not to bad 6months recuperation. Now I waterski, snow ski and run around in these puppies, no pain! no problems!. Don't screw around, get an MRI. If the disk is really herinated get a lamenectomy or fusion now depending on condition of disk. See the best spinal orthepedic you can find! Hope this helps, the pain sucks!

Mr. Demeanor

There are alot of new treatment out there for herniated discs. I encourage you to check out www.spineunivers.com
Good site for answers to just about any of your questions. As far as the injections, the only thing I can ad is be sure your Dr. is using some kind of image guiding for placement of the needle. There are some Dr's doing it in the office w/o imaging. Again, you can find info on that at the above site. I have had about everything go wrong with surgery that could go wrong so my personal opinoin is try every available option. Not sure where you are in Wisconsin but UofW Madison has a top rated spine clinic and your close enough to Mayo who has the #1 rated Neurosurgery unit in the country to consider both. Your spine is not somthing to trust to a Dr. you do not have complete confidence in. Do your homework and Best of luck.

Havasu Cig

I had imaging done while on the table during mine. I also had MRI's previous so they new exactly what the problem was. The first series of injections I had they waited a couple months between them. each one took car of the pain for about six weeks. The last series I had, we did one a week. I actually have had some permanent relief from that series.

As far as surgery, I chose to wait. The fix for my problem is a double fusion. I know several people that have had back surgery, and I know of one that was successful long term. I know a few that lasted a couple years, but then went south. Once you get cut, you can't go back. I am holding out as long as possible for new technology.

Another thing I would recommend is Chiropractic. I go twice a month and get adjusted, as well as traction. Both seem to really cut down on the flare up's that I get.

Good luck.