Today (Monday) was my 2nd Discogram and I was not happy! I was internally freaking out, and well maybe externally to. I may or may not have thrown a couple of hissy's on Mother's Day and maybe I shed a tear or two but I'll never tell... The whole fear of the procedure was kicking my tale! But I arrived bright and early for my appt Monday morning!Checking in and waiting to be taken back wasn't a long wait so that was a good start. They took me back and the nurse proceeded to put the IV in my hand and I could tell right from the start by the look on the other nurse's face that this nurse was not going to do it right... And nope she didn't...blew the first vein, then said "oops next vein"! She moves onto the next vein and "oops didn't get that one either" yep lost the second one too! So she finally tells the other nurse "SO SORRY umm can you get it"?! UMMM *knock knock* it's me you should apologize to!! The 2nd nurse had it done in less than 10 seconds, I was so thankful! They informed me in triage that my Dr's description of "heavily sedated" was not accurate, I would be sedated but not heavily...Then I started shaking in my shoes!I then met with the Dr who was a super fantastic guy. He explained everything to me (even though I'd had it done before I didn't know exactly what he was doing and wanted me to do as the last Dr wasn't very informative). Then the procedure nurses took me to the procedure room and got me all prepped and gave me my first dose of relaxant (no clue what it was). They were awesome nurses and told me that the Dr doing my procedure was very gentle and I should do just fine. I asked them how many discograms they do there and surprisingly they said typically they only do around two a month! WOW! That kind of shocked me for some reason.I got my next dose of relaxant as the Dr came in with the Radiologist and they started the procedure. The sedation made me feel a bit sleepy and more relaxed, when he placed the first needle which was a local to numb the area of injection that one hurt a bit. But this Dr did it a bit differently than my first one. He numbed each layer all the way before he put in the bigger needle into the disc and let me tell you it made a world of difference! I was relatively comfortable through the whole procedure!!!!!! I felt alot of pressure but not even a fraction of the pain I felt the first time! I told the nurse that "you know I'm doing good when I don't shed a single tear" LOL!! Oh and this Dr didn't hit one nerve! Not one!! Last time they hit nerves at least three times that I can remember!When they inject the dye they are looking for a reaction of pain or pressure, I only had one injection that mimicked my pain pretty much dead on. Dr asked me after he was done if I was okay and I told him that he was an awesome Dr and thanked him for making this so much easier on me!! They then sent me for the CT scan and back to recovery after that. As I was waiting for the CT disc to take to my Dr I rested then they buzzed the Hubby to bring the truck around to get me and started to wheel me out and I reminded them that I didn't have my CD yet so they park me in the hall *LOL* to figure out what the hold up was. While I was sitting there the Dr walked past and said to the nurse that he wanted to talk to me. He grabbed my chart and some pictures that were taken with the C-Arm during the procedure and he confirmed that I do have a positive result in the S1/L5 disc. Which means the dye leaked out causing the pain. I was so relieved to finally have some validation for my pain! I know it might sound strange to be glad that they found something but I don't feel crazy now LOL! I think this Dr went above and beyond to actually print these pictures for me and show me part of the results, most Dr's would just make you wait till you follow-up with your other Dr. So he told me to take all of my stuff to my next Dr appt and the radiologist will be sending a report with the results to my Dr ASAP. Now I just have to wait for June 4th to roll around! I think I can manage that, I've waited this long right?! I have had quite a bit of pain all day and night so I have been resting and taking my meds and that's helped a bit :)The top 2 are negative and the bottom one is positive, those things coming out of the discs are the needles!
Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers, it is so awesome to have such support when going through all of this craziness!!
A year ago in April I shared about a procedure/test I had done called a Discogram, it was used to determine if a herniated disc I had was causing a breakdown of the disc and based on this test they would decide course of treatment. So when I had this procedure/test done I swore I would never do anything like that again.... I first posted about this here and had hoped to get the answers I needed to correct my back pain. After I had the procedure done I was informed by a nurse over the phone that the test came back A-OK, which I was a little shocked by due to the pain levels I was having but I just chalked it up to my back injury and figured it would get better. Up to this point I had done 2 nerve injections, physical therapy, muscle relaxers and nothing worked. So I continued on living my days half-assed because that was the only way to keep the pain at a minimal level. About 8 months ago the pain started traveling down my right leg and so I went to see my PCP who basically told me I was fine. Again I waited another 4 months trying to manage and then returned again. His answer was to send me to pain management...My question to him was "what are we managing"?! I don't want to manage pain, I want to know what is wrong! So he set me up with an Orthopedic Specialist who is supposed to be the best of the best and well that shows because it took 2 months to get in to see him! So finally at the end of March I went to see him, I had to take in my MRI which was 2 years old at this point and the results of my discogram. The discogram that I had never seen the report of until I picked it up the day before my appt to find that the report did indeed say I had a positive reaction at the L5. So finally I see thhe new DR and give him everything and he basically said these other DR's were moron's since they couldn't piece this obvious problem together. My MRI showed a herniation at the L5 and my discogram showed positive results at the L5 meaning the 2 show something wrong there!! Then to top it all off after he looked at the hospital that I had the discogram at he asked if I was given anything to sedate and help me through the procedure and I told him only a tiny bit of valium that I had to beg for and it wore off before they even started and his response to all of that was "he would NEVER send a patient to that hospital for that exact reason, all of their patients are heavily sedated through the procedure as it is so horrifying and there was NO reason for them to not sedate me"!! OMGosh I was so mad!! Seriously all of that pain was unnecessary?! Now the sedation they give is a conscience sedation much like I had with the nerve injections and it does work wonders. So anyhow he sent me for an EMG and a Nerve Study then another MRI to see if the herniation was better/worse or if there were any pinched nerves. I wasn't able to get back in to see my DR for another month after that so finally last week I went in for my results. The findings were good and bad. They did not find any pinched nerves or nerve damage which is good, the L5 disc herniation is better however I have a new herniation at the L1 but he is not concerned with that at this time. And what was revealed through the MRI is that the L5 disc has degenerated, it was visible on the MRI 2 years ago and the discogram last year so guess what I have to do now...Another discogram!! He needs to pinpoint how bad it is to move on to the next level of treatment. He has promised me that I will be heavily sedated but awake of course and the downfall for after the procedure this time is I am to expect the pain to be severely worse due to the further degeneration :( I am scheduled to do this discogram on Monday... Because I have already done all of the other treatment options if they do indeed decide the disc has gotten worse he will want to look into surgery to replace the disc with an artificial disc. He is optimistic that I would be a good candidate for that option over fusion so that's better. I am not sure at this point how I feel about all of this but I do know I can't live like this forever! I just want it over with already!!
