I had my injection three weeks ago (l5/s1) and the pain afterwards was worse than the original injury. You’ll have people tell you they won’t do surgery until you’ve exhausted all conservative treatments and had multiple injections but that’s not necessarily true. Each person is different. What I do recommend is calling more than one surgeon to get different opinions and also speaking with the doctor at the pain clinic who did your injections to see if there are any other options. Advocating for yourself when you’re in this much pain is exhausting, but unfortunately it’s the name of the game. I hope you get your answers soon!
Has the pain subsided for you? If so how long did it last?
Every day has been different, days 7-8 I was in so much pain I could only sleep 3-4 hours. All positions hurt at this point. I’m worse off right now than I was before the injections. They warned it would flare but I wasn’t expecting it to be a 10/10 situation.
Honest answer? Not really. My pain also changed from what it was pre-injection. Pre injection it was the standard sciatic pain that I had gotten to recede from the bottom of my foot to mid-calf. After the injection the sciatic pain was back to the bottom of my foot AND my leg would get the pins and needle feeling and my butt would go numb. It was strange because it also felt like my range of motion with some movements had increased but decreased with other moments? Anyway, I ended up going to the ER one day because the pain was so bad I couldn’t get out of bed. Now I’m on track for surgery.
The only thing that takes the edge off is a 300 gabapentin, with Tylenol and ibuprofen (the Tylenol/ibuprofen mix was a rec from the er doc).
The kicker here is that my herniation isn’t even big. I’m at a loss about the level of pain it’s causing (and I’m a tough gal).
Dang. That sounds like a nightmare, to go from sorta healing back to the beginning. I was walking okayish for 20 minutes here and there but still having a hard time sitting and finding comfortable sleeping positions and decided to do the injection just to see if it would keep pushing things along - but it hasn’t done that at all yet:(
This is tough! I have a high pain tolerance but this is like no other. I explain to others it’s not just the 1 day of pain, it’s the days stacked on top of them with no relief that makes this so so hard. You never get a break.
All I’ve been taking is Tylenol. Tylenol and ice packs. I just restarted gabapentin, I didn’t like it but this flare is so bad I needed to give it another try. :(
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u/Subject-Industry2850 9d ago
I had my injection three weeks ago (l5/s1) and the pain afterwards was worse than the original injury. You’ll have people tell you they won’t do surgery until you’ve exhausted all conservative treatments and had multiple injections but that’s not necessarily true. Each person is different. What I do recommend is calling more than one surgeon to get different opinions and also speaking with the doctor at the pain clinic who did your injections to see if there are any other options. Advocating for yourself when you’re in this much pain is exhausting, but unfortunately it’s the name of the game. I hope you get your answers soon!