Pain management
Feb. 10th, 2010 04:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amanda_loddenSaw the pain management doctor today. Despite my irritation at how long I had to wait for the appointment (why, WHY on earth would an office specializing in pain management make someone wait nearly a week for an appointment? I called for an appointment last Thursday!), I really like the doctor. He coddled my inner techno-geek by going over the MRI films with me, explaining what I was seeing and which specific pictures contained the problem, which is so amazingly cool I can't begin to explain it. We discussed drug options (I'm allergic to codeine, Darvocet makes me unpleasantly loopy and it's pretty much the weakest narcotic there is, and the only non-narcotic non-over-the-counter pain medicine gives me migraines that are worse than the pain it masks), treatment options, and he was understanding about the fact that I'm going to fly to California then get in a truck and drive across country next week come hell or high water. His only response to that was "Well, I would normally have you come back to this office on Monday for treatment, but I don't think you should fly the day after, so we'll set you up with an appointment for an epidural at the Bloomfield Hills office tomorrow instead."
The upshot is that tomorrow I will get jabbed in the back with a large needle full of steroids. It's intended to help heal the bulging disc rather than to control the immediate pain, and because the pain stems from pressure on the nerve and the injection will put more fluid into the thing putting the pressure on the nerve, there is a possibility of even more pain for two to three days afterward as the disc heals. (Hence the "It's not a good idea to fly right afterward.") Once that pain subsides, it should take a lot of the existing pain with it (in a real, heal-the-underlying-problem manner, rather than in a mask-the-pain-so-you-don't-feel-it manner), and it should make the cross-country trip substantially more pleasant.
When the doctor described the procedure, he indicated that it would be a local anesthetic and "pressure" with the potential for some pain during the actual injection, which would take about 30 seconds, maybe a minute at the outside. When I went to set up the appointment, though, the nurse(?) asked if I wanted to be sedated. Given a choice... yes. The upside is that there will be no pain during the injection, and probably not for many hours afterward. The downside is that I can't have anything to eat or drink after midnight, so I had to choose between getting up early or starving. With my Hobbit-like attitude towards food, I took the "be here by 7:45am" appointment.
Wish me luck!
The upshot is that tomorrow I will get jabbed in the back with a large needle full of steroids. It's intended to help heal the bulging disc rather than to control the immediate pain, and because the pain stems from pressure on the nerve and the injection will put more fluid into the thing putting the pressure on the nerve, there is a possibility of even more pain for two to three days afterward as the disc heals. (Hence the "It's not a good idea to fly right afterward.") Once that pain subsides, it should take a lot of the existing pain with it (in a real, heal-the-underlying-problem manner, rather than in a mask-the-pain-so-you-don't-feel-it manner), and it should make the cross-country trip substantially more pleasant.
When the doctor described the procedure, he indicated that it would be a local anesthetic and "pressure" with the potential for some pain during the actual injection, which would take about 30 seconds, maybe a minute at the outside. When I went to set up the appointment, though, the nurse(?) asked if I wanted to be sedated. Given a choice... yes. The upside is that there will be no pain during the injection, and probably not for many hours afterward. The downside is that I can't have anything to eat or drink after midnight, so I had to choose between getting up early or starving. With my Hobbit-like attitude towards food, I took the "be here by 7:45am" appointment.
Wish me luck!
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-10 09:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-10 10:09 pm (UTC)While I'm sure I will be whiny and bitchy for the next few days and John will probably breathe a sigh of relief when he puts me on the plane... I'm largely okay with temporarily increased pain in order to get rid of the long-term pain. What's killing me has been that the pain never goes away, and no matter how many times I beat it into submission with drugs it will still come back. That we're looking at non-surgical options to make the underlying problem go away is all sorts of happy.
Up until this, the most successful way for me to reduce the pain was to go for a walk around the mall until something moved and I was in excruciating pain while I hobbled back to my car and for a couple hours afterward. As the pain subsided, it would generally go down to levels lower than when I started-- but it would take a day or two. This isn't all that much different, except that I get to be sedated and it will speed up healing instead of just moving what the disc is pressing on.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-12 07:23 am (UTC)