First my ESI procedure needed to be rescheduled to the following week because the staff there "forgot" to send it to my insurance company for pre-authorization. When I asked how long that would take, they replied that it would be about a week before they would hear back (keep in mind that I'm still in pain this entire time and had to wait another week). Some friends and relatives that work in the medical/insurance field told me that it does not take that long to get pre-authorized for that procedure. At most 2 days and in some cases they can call over and have it approved the same day. It all depends on how much you advocate/care about your patient's needs. There seemed to be no urgency on their part.
When the day for my procedure finally arrived, I was optimistic. The MA checking me in said that Dr. Ren does these all the time and has another dozen or so patients lined up after me. When I laid down on the table, the RN was going over some pre-procedural notes and said that "O.K., we are injecting your right side of your back", to which the surgical tech and I yelled out "No, it's the left side". The RN looked at her computer screen closer and told us that she had the incorrect patient chart up. I glad they have these pre-procedural checks to catch any mistakes. So after everything was verified correctly this time, Dr. Ren proceeded with the local anesthetic injection. It burned as expected (I've had this procedure done many years ago and knew what should be normal in regards to pain and recovery) but the pain was fine. I've been told be physical therapist and doctors and nurses that I have a pretty high pain tolerance (which is sometimes not a good thing).
Next was the actual steroid medicine injection. She went in at odd angle and proceeded to push the steroid medicine in. I almost jumped off the table. The tech and RN had to hold me down and told me to breath. Dr. Ren said she must have hit to correct spot since I could feel the pain running down my leg like it was on fire/electrocuted. She said she was only half done and told me it would be another 10 seconds before she was done. Frankly, that was probably one of the worst pains I've felt in my life. After it was all said and done, they instructed me on how to walk out of the room since my entire left leg was numb. As they passed me off to the discharge/recovery RN, they laughed about how they gave me a couple of good zingers. I thought this to be not professional and caring of their patients. I was told to monitor my progress, since it would take about 2-3 days for the steroid to be fully absorbed and have a more lasting effect. After 2 hours, I could feel my leg again and the pain started to slowly return.
After 2-3 days, no improvement. After 1 week, 2 weeks, still no improvement. The pain was like before I had the injection.
I went to see another Back specialist and they reviewed my MRI and said that my injection was given in the wrong disc. Based on the MRI and my symptoms, it should have been the disc above. Don't know if this would of made a difference if Dr. Ren injected me in the disc above instead if the disc below. Dr. Ren said if this didn't work then come back to have a second injection. Which leads me to believe that it is all pretty subjective and that the doctors keep giving injections until one of them "works".
Suffice it to say that I will not be going back to see this doctor.
There has got to be better doctors and procedures out there that does not require surgery.
My hope that for anyone experiencing these types of back pain due to herniated discs, you can find lasting relief. read more