Pregnant woman have epidurals..... and now I've had one.
So, before they do surgery, they wanted to give me an epidural with pain killers and steriods as a last ditch effort. If I have relief, I could have 2 more - max is 3 in one year. I was told I would see pain relief by tonight and steriod results within 3-5 days.
I had it done earlier today - around 10:30 am. When I set it up last week, I was given a choice - with or without anestisia.... so I said with anestisia - knock me the f out!
Well, I show up today and they ask if I had anything to eat this morning, I said yup, they asked if anyone called me last week, I said nope.... and they said they can't do the anestisia. I've had lots of surgery before and I was always told nothing to eat midnight on.... but I figured that since this was just an injection... I would be fine.
So, they offered to reschedule tomorrow... or I could do it without anestisia.
I said lets give it a shot without the anestisia.
So, they numbed the area a bit and then inserted the BIG ******** needle into the nerves around the C3 to C4 disc in my spine. I actually expected pain but it wasn't too bad. I did experience a shooting pain into my right shoulder but not too bad. As they were putting the needle in my spine, they were doing multiple x rays to monitor where the needle was going.
I was told it would take about 10-15 minutes.... but I lucked out and it took about under a minute.
When I left.... I felt ZERO pain. Within one hour, the pain got worse. I'm in tons of pain now.
I expected this to be a waste of time... as surgery is inevitable...but I had to try this.
We shall see how it goes.
If it doesn't work, I will have surgery to have the C3 to C4 fused, C4 to C5 fused, C5 to C6 fused.... and I already have C6 to C7 fused. I will loose 30% of my ability to turn left, right, up and down.
Life is interesting..... but it could be worse.