Epidural Day

Today, I went with Jeremy to get his first epidural steroid injection for his back. The doctor, Anthony Pellegrino, was wonderful! He explained it so well to me. Jeremy was so anxious and his heart rate was way up but after talking with the doctor was very calm for the procedure. He had a model of the back and really made it so clear. So basically in between the vertebrae are discs, and he compared them to a stale jelly donut, which is hard on the outside and soft jelly like on the inside to cushion everything. Basically your whole upper body and stress you put yourself through is put onto the bottom two vertabrae, L5 & S1 and if you lean over or do something else all of the pressure if put onto the front depending on which way you are looking at it of the vertabrae and if it is severe enough it will essentially squeeze the jelly out (slipped/herniated/protruding/bulging disc) and that will irritate the nerve endings. And if the nerve endings are damaged enough then it'll cause numbness into the leg, which Jeremy has. So basically, the idea of the steroid injection is to shrink the disc and bring down the swelling. But he also said after the injection people need to learn how to live with the condition because it isn't a fix. So to never ever bend over and to always squat if you need to pick something up and never to twist. He has had back problems himself and says he always rolls sideways out of bed, wears shoes without laces, and has a shelf in his shower so he doesn't have to bend to pick up shampoo or soap. So there are things we will just have to adjust to.

They used x-ray technology to see the spine and make sure they are putting the injection into the right place. I couldn't be in the room because of the radiation. Jeremy said it went really well and so did the doctor. The dr. also says we should name the baby Anthony, Which would give us a couple of mobster babies with Vincent and Anthony (Vinny and Tony). Right after his legs were just real heavy and everything but he should be doing better soon hopefully. They usually have to do more than one injection, especially if it as severe as a case as Jeremy's is. So in two weeks we'll need to get another one. You can have 3 every 6 months and it may be that we just repeat this every six months.

It is just amazing! We have wasted so much time with different doctors then last Monday we meet with Dr. Levine and he automatically gets us in with the pain doctor and today we got the first epidural, meanwhile according to the other doctor we were seeing....insurance still hadn't approved pain management...obviously they had!