Hello. I have found this site very useful and thanks first for everybody involved in it. My story is that I had a steroid injection last September ('13) for an L4/5 disc rupture that caused me pain when I sat. The procedure was horrific and I screamed in pain and roared for it to stop. I was so traumatised by the severity of the pain that I cried throughout the procedure and when he withdrew the needle and I could feel it I was so scared the agony would come again I shouted "Stop hurting me!"
I was mortified afterwards and asked the radiologist who was performing it whether that degree of agony was normal. Perfectly normal he said and I went away very hopeful of success. 48 hours later I was crippled with severe bilateral sciatica from spine to ankle and excruciating spinal pain both on the site of the injection and on its mirror image opposite. I'd never had any right side symptoms in my life but now I had terrible pain symmetrically. It took many weeks to subside. Two months after the injection my left hand became rigid one morning and fixed in a strange shape with the middle fingers pointing down. I was unable to control or move the hand for about 7 - 10 seconds. By Christmas I became away of increasing pain in the outer calf of both legs which was getting gradually more intense as time went by. It was a burning, stinging pain, unlike slipped disc radicular pain. I also had a persistent tingling spot in my left arm and pain in both wrists and hands. By January I needed to take Tramadol to be able to concentrate on my work. An MRI in December had ruled out any disc cause for my brand new right side symptoms and lower leg symptoms on both sides.
My ortho had discharged me the second I told him about the new symptoms, although they were far worse than the symptoms I was being treated for. He talked over me so relentlessly whenever I tried to tell him about the injection he just stared at me and said, "That is not possible." I saw a neurologist who said whatever was causing the pain could not be related to the injection because ct-guided injections are foolproof. She has sent me for nerve tests to see if it is peripheral neuropathy.
She says I am imagining it. I tell her that she is imagining that I am imagining it. The pain is like jelly fish stings across the top of the feet. I call them zingers. And then shooting pains in the calf and a deep ache in both outer calves. Deep pain in the wrists and hands. I am having an MRI in May and hope that will shed some light on this. The question I have (after all this) what is the minimum time it takes for the scar tissue to form sufficiently for any clumping to potentially be visible on the MRI? Anybody got any idea?
I'm 50 and had just recovered from a two year illness caused by an adverse reaction to ciprofloxacin when this happened. My ligaments snapped in both feet and I had tendinitis all over. I was just going back to work and getting my life back together when this epidural was performed so I am very disappointed to be ill again. I can work with the help of one tramadol every day at noon (that's when the pain kicks in) but I am very apprehensive about the future.
I'd be grateful for any opinions or knowledge about the MRI timescale. My heart goes out to those of you whose stories I have read on here.