So, I did have a number of injections last Tuesday at the
Oklahoma Spine hospital. I had a lumbar epidural, a selective nerve root block and a facet joint block. The facet joint block was added at the last minute when discussing the pain issues with my pain management doctor. I told him that I sometimes locked up in the hip area because of being in so much pain and that my husband had to help me move again.
Anyway, even before the first injection, I had a reaction to the IV being placed in my hand. I told the nurse that I had valves in my hand that were close together and that sometimes caused an issue with IVs, so she numbed the area and began to put the IV in my left hand near my pinky. I told her that I felt how cold the fluid that she was flushing the IV with in my arm and then I tasted a metallic substance in my mouth and all of a sudden I got light-headed, very warm and started sweating profusely, nauseous, my ears were ringing and I was seeing black spots. The nurse told me to lay back in the chair, she called another nurse over who immediately had me smell
QueaseEASE, an all natural product with unique essential oil smells. It smelled wonderful, and almost immediately started to ease the queasy feeling in my empty stomach. The second nurse also began to fan me with a piece of paper while the nurse who administered the IV went and got a wet washcloth to put on my head. At this point, I wasn't sure what was going on as I had never before reacted this way to an IV being inserted into my arm/hand. The nurse told me that I was having a
vasovagal response to my IV. This response occurs in response to a trigger with a corresponding malfunction in the parts of the nervous system that regulate heart rate and blood pressure. So, as soon as she got the cold compress on my head she took my blood pressure, which was much lower than it was just a few minutes before. I was nervous that they weren't going to be able to do the injections, but within minutes my symptoms began subsiding...the nurse went ahead and gave me anti-nausea medicine through my IV anyway to prevent any further issue and she said we would be able to go through with the injections.
About 10 minutes later, I was being wheeled back to the injection room, but the anesthesiologist who would be administering the
versed during the procedure was informed about my vasovagal response to the IV. I'm not sure if this was the reason, but for the first time in any of my previous injections I had oxygen delivered through a nasal cannula before the versed was injected. If he noticed my surprise at the oxygen he didn't say because 5 seconds later he was administering the versed and I was on my way to conscious sedation land. Also, for the first time, the procedure seemed to take longer than previous injections and I felt some discomfort during the procedure, not just pressure as I had before.
I remember getting off the table and back into the recovery chair and being wheeled back to the recovery area and asked what type of drink and crackers I wanted, then my husband coming back in to see me. The doctor came in a few minutes later and told us that the procedure went well, but that he did aspirate one of my joints (I forgot to ask which one, or if he told me I forgot what he said) and he said that he was surprised at the amount of fluid he got out of the joint. I've been searching the Internet since the procedure (instead of calling the doctor and asking what he aspirated) to see if I could figure out what area he got fluid from, but there are so many areas that I really do need to ask him when I speak to him.
My husband, God love him, took me home and got me set up in my recliner for the day with food, fluids and an ice machine that I use which I received from the Spine Hospital when I had my ACDF surgery. That machine has come in handy so many times I have lost count. Anyway, my back felt great for the first 4-5 hours as it was still numb from the procedure, but then I got some pain. I read through the hospital discharge papers and saw that the pain was probably from the injection sites and from the actual aspiration, so I wasn't worried, but I did go ahead and take 2 pain pills to see if that would help. Unfortunately, all it did was put me to sleep in the recliner and I wasn't in a good position so I woke up in more pain than when I went to sleep.
I spent two days icing my back and hips and the pain seemed to have really disappeared. I was happy because I was sore, but it wasn't PAIN and the sciatica that had been really crippling me for the past few months was gone. I knew that the pain could come back at any time, but I was glad for the time without it without drugs and without being tired from the
Norco and the
Gabapentin.
I called back my pain management doctor on Monday night to tell them how I felt and I was still feeling great at that time, but the day after I called to tell them how happy I was with my injections, my sciatica came back with a vengeance. I've now iced for two days, but I'm hoping to get a call from the doctor's office to tell me that they can get me in for injections this Tuesday so we can see if a second round of injections will keep the pain away for longer, maybe a year as the last round of two injections two weeks apart did.
I am taking venlafaxine for the anxiety that the pain has caused me, I take Norco 10/325mg for the pain, but it doesn't always work and if I take enough to keep it working well, I get stomach aches and nausea, and I take Gabapentin to help with the nerve pain, but the thing it does most is put me to sleep, almost immediately.
