[brewmonkey]

No, caffeine intake is low to nothing and has been for some time. We found that the amount of coffee I was drinking during the day had an effect on the CNS that amplified the pain in the back and legs. However I have seen the effects a sudden decrease or stop can have on someone. The pain doc has me on Inderal and Midrin for the headaches and while it is not 100% effective it works (85-90%) well enough to tolerate the pain.


I saw the crackpots I swore I would never go back to. My last visit with them ended with the doctor talking about licking frogs as pain meds and insisting that I get an epidural.

Now I know that meds can come from a variety of sources. I have even read some interesting stuff on the meds that can possibly be developed from the secretions of reptiles like the poison dart frogs, however the doc went a bit far into strangeland to suit my needs. When he insisted on an epidural to "fix" my problem I decided to move on to another doc.

Well after several months of not going back I caved in and went. I talked to a different doctor there this time and was not surprised when I got the same efforts on the epidurals. My concern with the epidurals is that I have arachnoiditis. There is no cure for this and epidurals may not only be one of the causes they tend to be ineffective in providing relief. This is not like when I was first diagnosed with Spondylolisthesis and they had a chance to work. However I decided to see if there was merit to this doctors reasons as he presented much better then the doc before.

This was THE MOST painful epidural (Caudal) I have ever had. It was like he did not bother to use a local at all and just plunged the needle in. In the past it has also taken several minutes from the injection until all the meds were delivered, like the doctors would pump a little in and let it settle before doing a bit more. Not this time, the needle went in and BAM! so did the meds.

I could literally taste the stuff the next day and while a slight increase in pain can be expected this was much different then the last 9 I have received. My back was on fire the next morning and my foot felt like someone plugged it in. It has been several days since and most of the pain has subsided but I do not feel any relief from the first one, not even a tiny bit.

Anyway, the epidural is over and done with. I will not let them do a second or third one.

We did discuss the headaches and on the 22nd when I go back they are going to do an MRI of basically the whole back and head. They are going to check on the progress of the arachnoiditis as well as see what if anything might be causing the headaches.

I will follow up once we get the MRI results. The good news is that this place has their own radiologist who will be there doing the MRI with the tech. My doctor said he wants the results ASAP so hopefully I will have preliminary results that afternoon.