I don't know how much overlap there is, but I had an epidural when delivering my kids.

It wasn't bad at all. A little weird pressure and that was it.

I agree the side effects sound terrifying when they tell them to you, but I had no side effects or lingering issues.

I'm sorry to hear about your injury. Back pain is awful.

There's nothing to be afraid of with these shots. I've had four of them (L5-S1 herniation). It's super quick, super painless. You "recover" for a few minutes and you are on your way.

I'm not a fan of shots in general (I nearly passed out BEFORE I was going to give blood). But these suckers are super routine. There is zero to stress about.

I herniated L5-S1 about 19 months ago. I have gotten several epidural steroid injections. They wipe the area with a deadening agent. After that, its a very tiny needle for the initial injection of a local anesthesia. The only feeling I have of the epidural is the "pressure" of the steroid going into the body. Mildly uncomfortable, but nothing compared to the back and sciatic pain down my leg!
Best of luck!

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Habitual line stepper.

My brother has had several of these done and has had no issues from the actual procedure. He schedules them for the afternoon since they knock him out and he is back at work the next day. Usually a little sore where they inserted the shot but not painful or anything. It has helped him manage the pain and avoid surgery

Had one at L5-S1. Other than a little sting from the anesthetic, it was a piece of cake. A little pressure and that's it. More setup and waiting than the actual procedure.

I have ruptured discs at L4-L5 and L5-S1. Way back in '05 they ruptured really, really bad. Couldn't walk, stand or sit and was on cancer level narcotic pain meds. The ortho doc finally sent me for a root sleeve block. This is where they inject the steroid and/or a anesthetic directly into the sleeve of the nerve root. It's a little different then just a epidural if I understand it correctly. The root sleeve block is rather painful because when they enter the sleeve it causes even more pain then you are already having. But they do work and if you're really in significant pain you'll welcome the relief they provide.

If you are just getting the epidural then it shouldn't be too uncomfortable and there should be less risk of complications. For me I went from having to lay flat all the time to back on my bike in about 7-10 days. Yea there was occasional pain but nothing that wasn't manageable. My left leg was the affected one and had been almost paralyzed from the pinched nerve. That resulted in me losing so much strength in it that I had to walk with a cane for several days after the procedure. 5-6 weeks after the procedure I rode 40 miles from Townsend Tn to Clingman's Dome with minimal pain and a pretty decent time. Sure the procedure was painful but the relief made it worthwhile.

Since it sounds like your procedure won't be quite as invasive as mine was YMMV, but that was my experience in the short term. Long term I live with neuropathy and occasional pain mostly below the left knee from the nerve damage. Right now I'm not running because things have flared up and I feel better on the bike. I don't think I'd have had as good as an outcome from surgery or not having the procedure.

Lower back doesn't sound bad, I crushed c5-6 and they shot a 5 inch needle through the front of my neck to do the injection... at least you don't have to see the needle. :)

With that said for me... the shot was a bandaid and didn't solve my problem at all. I had a fusion surgery on 6/26 and my pain was gone as soon as I woke up. Hope you recover fast and long term.

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ishi no ue ni san nen | Perseverance will win in the end. | Blog | @nebmot | Strava | Instagram |

Make sure Doctor has done thousands of these, and that he/she does it under x ray. Like others say very little pain. Maybe a quick couple of pinches and then it is over.

i had a disc rupture at C4/C5 in 2009. was severe enough that surgery was clearly necessary, but a steroid epidural was suggested as a pain management / reduction measure. the procedure was x-ray intensive, and apparently sensitive and delicate enough such that i was sedated / knocked out. the pain reduction was a bit more than nominal, but welcome. i reduced my pain meds from 2 750 Vicodins every couple of hours to maybe half of that. had a cervical laminectomy to repair this disc and have been gold since.

I have had a couple. No big deal but boy did they work!

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

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Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

I'm due for one as well! I have two disc bulges in my L4-L5, racing Ironman Chattanooga. Anyone have any thoughts on how soon prior to race I should get a shot?

Thanks for the input everyone. My situation seems pretty minor compared to what some of you have gone through. Doc and PT seem pretty confident that the shot and a few weeks of therapy will clear everything up.

Just to pile on, I've had a few and they're definitely uncomfortable during the procedure for a few seconds, but you walk out of there just fine. The typical process is you lie face down on a table, they use a fluroscope (sp?...a focused x-ray) to target the injection. You'll usually get a couple of smaller needles to start with lidocaine as a local, then the longer one into the nerve root. You'll feel some uncomfortable pressure and maybe some tingling down your leg (if it's the L4/L5 junction). You might get a little soreness around the injection site, for which you'll use ice packs and/or Advil/Aleve. Full activity as tolerated the following day, though I usually take a couple of days easy afterwards. The nerve could be a little irritated afterwards from the cortisone/steroid, but that should calm down in a few days.

Good luck - hope it solves your problem. I've had mixed results over the years.

I feel the need to make my dissenting opinion known. Epidural injections are a risk. There is risk of infection, risk of hitting the nerve, risk of an unexpected reaction, risk of having a null effect, etc. Additionally, epidurals do not cure lower back pain. An epidural is typically and cocktail of pain reducing medication and a steroid for reducing inflammation injected into the space surrounding the nerve root thought to be sending pain down the leg. Mistakes can happen.

If you have a mechanical problem, disc material compressing a nerve route, reducing swelling might have a positive effect. However, there is no guarantee that this is permanent. In fact several previous posters report needing this procedure over again in subsequent years. Lower back pain is like the common cold. We need to learn how to manage it rather that fix it once and for all. It happens to nearly everyone and we should be more concerned with treating the pain and functional limits that result rather than the proposed anatomical defect. The research is very clear that disc material (HNP) presence on MRI does not equal pain. Treating an MRI result rather than the mechanical issue can have deleterious effects. Find a PT who knows how to treat mechanical low back pain; Mckenzie approach is well-researched, non-invasive and very dependent on patient self-treatment.

Its glorious. Minimal pain, maximum relief. I've had two of them dealing with L4-L5 issues.

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http://Everydadironman.blogspot.com

I'll give you an opinion from the other side of the needle...I'm a physiatrist (rehab doc) at a large mixed specialty practice (ortho, rehab, podiatry, PT, x-ray/MRI etc). I've been sending patients to our injection docs for eleven years and no one has had a serious reaction (bleeding or infection). There is a risk of these and other issues but they are very rare when done properly. Our guys do a dozen or more per week and have been doing so for years. They use fluoroscopic guidance (kinda like live x-ray) to see needle placement and to make sure they are not in a danger zone or in a blood vessel. When the problem is properly identified and the injection is done well the success rates are 65-70%. The biggest risk is that it simply won't work.
A few more things...epidurals should only be used for radiating pain ('sciatica') symptoms. They are not intended for treatment of low back pain but do help leg/nerve pain from back issues. There is anesthetic used superficially but not at the site of the nerve or you would have numbness and weakness when you get up after the injection. This is why women in labor, who receive anesthetic via a catheter drip are numb and are not supposed to get up and walk around after the epidural is placed....some people respond very quickly, others not so much. It takes 2-7 days to start to work and up to 2 weeks to see the full effect. Occasionally there is an increase in pain for a day or so but this is pretty rare.
Summation: they are done easily by experienced docs, very safe (nothing is completely safe) and efficacy is mixed...

It's not bad at all. If you can take the pain of a triathlon, you can take a ESI.

I herniated 2 discs (L3/L4 & L5/S1) about 2 years ago. The pain was unimaginable (unless you've experienced it). I could barely walk... and when I could, if the pain hit me, I'd hit the floor like I just got shot in the head. It also happened right in the middle of my triathlon season too... no tris for what turned out to be 9+ months. That sucked... and fucked with me mentally. Most of us here are not accustomed to sitting around doing nothing. Which is what I did for 6 weeks... outside of PT.

I got 2 ESIs about 6-8 weeks apart. I'll caveat the rest of this with a disclaimer that I work for the practice that performed the injections... but it really makes no difference. And with that being said, I have nothing to do with that aspect of the practice ( I perform nerve conduction studies). But I do hear from patients that complain about it (then again, those types of patients complain about everything). I went into my injection with no preconceived notions/expectations/etc... I just wanted the pain to stop. One of the hardest parts of the injection procedure for me was getting into the position I needed to be in... prone. Lying on my stomach was damn near impossible at the time, but our injection staff got it done to their credit.

The injection itself was lightning fast. Seriously. There was a small poke and then a burn, which did hurt, and I responded with, "AH! Fuck!" My doc responded with, "Well, I was in the right spot!" Which he already knew as it was done under fluoroscopy. And that was it. I literally said, "That's it?!?" He said, "Yup"... I said, "Why do patient's bitch about this?" I got a look that said... you know why.

It is no big deal. You'll be fine. The bad thing about googling a medical procedure is that you get the horror stories, most greatly exaggerated. Look for what the procedure is trying to accomplish and steer away from a person's description/view of it.

As far as what the injection did for me... the first one got rid of the pain. But I still had numbness in my quads and the lateral aspect of my shin (TA and PL muscles...essentially in the distribution of my herniations). I could live with the numbness in my shin, but there was no way I could run with the numbness in my quads... and literally at that point, I though I'd never do a tri again (luckily I was wrong). I kept, for lack of a better term, badgering the doc (as I saw him at work every Monday AM) about the numbness. He said he never did injections to get rid of numbness (there's always a chance that a person will have residual numbness... see above comment on living with the shin numbness). He did cave and did a second set of injections (might be a perk of working there ;) ... and the numbness subsided over the next few days. Ever since, knock on wood, I've been good to go... and tackling my first (and last) Ironman this year.

So don't fret about it. Go in relaxed as you can, then focus on the rehab. And stay positive! I'll admit, I did not stay positive. Lesson learned.

Plus... what this guy said.

Slightly off topic, I apologize in advance. Do these type of injections set off a flag if your checked for doping after a race?.

I might need one for a Sciatica issue.


Ron W.

Having sciatica for 6 months last year, and knowing how painful this is, who cares, if the shot helps you, nothing is worth not doing because one might get tested and it might be an issue. Since you will never be tested, .....

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

Boom Nutrition code 19F4Y3 $5 off 24 pack box | Bionic Runner | PowerCranks | Velotron | Spruzzamist

Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

Are you saying you don't know if a steroid injection is banned? Would you still race if it was? Don't you rail against the 'dopers' in your races??

Agree with this ^^

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CB
Physical Therapist/Endurance Coach
http://www.cadencept.net