About 2 months ago was when I got my blood patch after my lumbar puncture a week and a half prior.
For a week after my BP I had bad nerve pain in my legs. I was on prednisone for a week after and it helped it subside until now.
So about 2 months after the blood patch my nerve pain in my legs has come back. It took a month and a half after my blood patch for my csf leak symptoms to finally go away.
It’s like I just can’t win. The nerve pain in my legs has come back with a vengeance. It’s the worst when I’m laying down. It’s like someone is trying to rip off my legs from my the soles of my feet to my low back. It’s like a bad stinging pain that you just want to stop because it’s so uncomfortable. Not only that, but it’ll feel like bugs are crawling all over my legs.
It started off small but then has got worse every single day to where I can’t even sit comfortably anymore without nerve pain. Only been a week since it came back and it’s hit hard. My lower back where I got my blood patch has also gotten sensitive and hurts.
Not only that, but just a few days ago I started to get headaches again while standing up. I was like ahh this has to just be a coincidence no way I’m leaking again. Well, it hasn’t stopped. I am also getting nauseas.
Nerve pain is the absolute worst because you know it can grow to absolutely ruin your life and there’s no stopping point for it. I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m obviously going to talk to my doctors but like Jesus Christ. I can’t deal with damage from my lumbar puncture and blood patch.
What I don’t understand is that gabapentin doesn’t help this nerve pain at all, but my Hydrocodone does. Gabapentin helps my other nerve pain but does zip for this. I don’t know why Hydrocodone would help this situation. Ahhhhhhh I just want to scream it’s never ending
I’m assuming you’re in the US due to insurance forcing you to do PT? I’m so sorry. The health care system is incredibly fucked up.
Gabapentin does help me a bit. I have nerve pain down my neck through my collar bone and into my arms on both sides and down through the back of my shoulders and into my arms. The back of the shoulder nerve pain is due to the CSF leak from the spinal tap. The gabapentin helps with that.
Other than that, gabapentin doesn’t do anything. I’m taking 1800 mg a day. Instead of giving pain meds that help people they are throwing gabapentin at everybody now a days. It’s sad
What they don’t tell you about gabapentin is that the withdrawals are gnarly. Also, there is quite a bit of side effects. The only reason gabapentin isn’t controlled and Lyrica is, gabapentin take 3-4 hours to reach peak plasma levels while Lyrica is much faster
Gabapentin can take a couple weeks to take affect. It isn’t a couple day thing. So give it some time at first. What dose are you taking now and increasing it to?
Ah okay I see. Yeah if you don’t have nerve pain don’t expect it to do anything. It doesn’t do anything for my leg nerve pain. Don’t touch it
Well let me know if the gabapentin helps!
What’s up with the antacid? Never heard that and I’ve never had issues. Also, pretty sure it’s longer than a 7 day period. My pain mgt doc told me it’s a slow ween off and from what I’ve seen online some people do it over a month or more depending on dose
Interesting. I personally haven’t noticed a difference whether I take antacids within that time frame. Taking it 3 times a day makes it hard to time antacids. ¯_(ツ)_/¯