posted
I HAVE HAD A RECENT STEROID INJECTION IN MY LOWER BACK FOR PAIN CONTROL IN THAT REGION. I HAVE BEEN A CHRONIC LYME PATIENT FOR ALMOST 6 YEARS NOW AND HAVE BEEN ON A ROLLER CPOASTER RIDE OF TREATMENTS ETC.. HOWEVER, SINCE THIS LAST SHOT, THE FATIGUE HAS BEEN OVERWHELMING AND I HAVE NEVER FELT SICKER. IS IT TRUE THAT STEROID INJECTIONS ARE EXTREMELY HARMFUL FOR LYME PATIENTS? AND IF SO, WHAT DAMAGE CONTROL CAN BE DONE. I RECEIVED AN ADVERTISING EMAIL ON A NEW BOOK BY ROSNER WHICH CONTAINED A SMALL ARTICLE ADDRESSING THIS SUBLECT AND QUOTING DR. BURRASCANO IN A SMALL STIPPET, BUT I NEED HELP IN FINDING THE RESEARCH SOURCES ETC? javascript:void(0)
Posts: 2 | From Pueblo,Co.,USA | Registered: May 2005
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klutzo
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 5701
posted
I also got sicker from steroid shots in my lower back, but I had to have them. I could not lie, sit or stand, and was literally screaming in pain.
Taking high dose Probiotics for the next month is a necessity, IMO, since steroids encourage yeasts. I can't provide you with citations, but any search will turn up the reasoning behind using probiotics.
The good news is that cortisone usually wears off in about 3 weeks.
Klutzo
Posts: 1269 | From Clearwater, Florida, USA | Registered: May 2004
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randibear
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 11290
posted
i had 11, yes, 11 lumbar and cervical blocks. the docs at that time thought i had rsd but i bet it was lyme.
does anybody know what is in those things?
-------------------- do not look back when the only course is forward Posts: 12262 | From texas | Registered: Mar 2007
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posted
unfortunatly, I did the same thing, before I realized I had lyme....have had it for the past 20 years, I am only 28!
I was dx with fibromyalgia and mixed connective tissue disorder. We were going to drive to florida for spring break...a 20 hour drive for us.
I knew there was no way I could make it....and then have to carry my 3 year old through all the parks, as he gets so overwhelmed....
so in desperation, I asked a pain managment doc here to do a nerve block (seeing as that's about all our pain managment quacks do)....
He never explained anything, never sedated me,...turns out he gave me facet injections....12 shots into my spine! He nicked my nerves I believe, making matters worse.... he said he's never seen anyone with such sensitive nerves.... (should have given him a clue I was really in much pain)
I couldn't walk afterwards I hurt much worse than I started out with.
Since then I have rapidly been going downhill. It's my understanding that the steroids suppress the immune system and let the lyme run rampit.
my symptoms are out of control, the pain is unbearable....ask any mother what it feels like not to be able to hold your crying child....
it also seems to have brought out the babs, as I have had scary air hunger too. and a headache EVERY single day for the past 3 months!!!!
I go see LLMD in 2 weeks thank GOD, but still am very scared, as when treatment starts, the herxing....is it possible to feel worse???
I believe also that even without lyme, steroids are a horrible thing, but I felt like I had no choice, I didn't want to go on this vacation and not be able to do things with my kids...I want them to have good memories of thier mommy. Not laying in the hotel room the whole time writhing around in pain. SO I just pushed myself and did everything with them.
Posts: 151 | From ohio | Registered: May 2007
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timaca
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 6911
posted
A steroid shot to my knee activated latent lyme in me. I went from a very healthy, very athletic person, to someone who got very ill and could not function.
17 doctors and a year and a half later I figured out (by God's grace and the internet) that it was lyme. A visit at Columbia University Medical Center confirmed that diagnosis.
I've been trying to get well ever since.
If you aren't treating the lyme, you should.
Posts: 2872 | From above 7,000 ft in a pine forest | Registered: Feb 2005
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5dana8
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 7935
posted
me too. Had one in my back for back pain. Didn't know about steroids & lyme at the time. This may have contributed to my last relaspe.
-------------------- 5dana8 Posts: 4432 | From some where over the rainbow | Registered: Sep 2005
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tdtid
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 10276
posted
Sorry, I have to jump on the bandwagon against steroid injections as well. I went five years with all the usual misdiagnosis's and then was told my neck and back pain was degenerative disc disease but they didn't know what was causing the other symptoms.
At the time, I just wanted the pain to stop since I couldn't do the pain pills. So I was told my choice was surgery or epidural steroid injections.
I chose to do the steroids. But ended up with stroke like symptoms with them. I couldn't talk, I couldn't walk. I was numb on my right side and had a tremor on my right. The MRI showed I had not had a stroke and the doctor's still seemed perplexed.
My N.D., who I started seeing after my M.D. said it was fibromyalgia with something else going on...did an Igenex Western Blot and sent my to a lyme specialist.
My Lyme doctor said that my reaction to the steroid shots were NOT uncommon for a patient with lyme disease and he calls them "contra- indicated). So I would just say to be very careful before consenting to something like that.
My story is more the norm, instead of a fluke or unique case with someone with lyme, sadly.
Cathy
-------------------- "To Dream The Impossible Dream" Man of La Mancha Posts: 2638 | From New Hampshire | Registered: Oct 2006
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posted
before I knew I had lyme, they told me I had bursitis, and gave me 2 steroid shots in my hips. My hips did not get worse at all, but my mental fog and short term memmory loss got SO SO SO SO SO much worse! SO much worse, and I could not figure out what it was!
posted
In the Lyme blog on this Lyme book page at amazon the author mentions the danger of steriods. It sounds like Lymies should never use those at all.
posted
I had the same reaction to facet joint injections( before Lyme diagnosis).
And during a particularly hellacious migraine that lasted 5 weeks and required numerous ER visits, I had long steroid bursts with Prednisonre and Decadron...that is what sped up this downward spiral.
Posts: 69 | From Wisconsin | Registered: Apr 2007
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posted
so that about says it all....no steroids for any of us!
it's amazing the damage that something we seek out to help us, can do so much harm.... when we are already in a time of desperation
Posts: 151 | From ohio | Registered: May 2007
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butchieboo
Unregistered
posted
I did'nt post here cuz I don't have any documented sites for you....
I would not recommend steroids of any kind for anyone who has or is suspicious of having lyme disease. They do lower the immune system.
However... After my first total knee replacement in 99 I started having such awful pain in my rigt hip
and lower back that I was unable to cope! Of course the vicodin did nothing for the pain.
Radiculating pain, often a common occurance with total knee replacement surgery.
I sought out a anesthesiologist who do the caudal blocks in the spinal collumn at Southwest
hospital in Middleburg Hts. Ohio and we did a series of three shots.
After the first shot my pain went from thru the the roof to hardly any pain at all so I consented to the last two shots.
I knew they would be putting steroids in my spinal collumn. I conferred with my LLMD at the
time and he told me the shots would not work and may cause serious side effects.
I took a chance.
The llmd was wrong this time and everything went well. As yet I have'nt noticed any side effects of those shots eight years since.
GO FIGURE!???
I had an injection of male hormones for what my duck thought was male menopause and I developed diabetes2 the second month into those shots...
It seems that IM Testosterone has a tendancy to retard absorption of insulin into the cells which causes diabetes2.
I think I was lucky with the shots into the spinal collumn. Could be it was because the shots were INTO the spinal collumn where BB
does'nt like to live and not the surrounding muscles of the spine where other shots have been
given folks for pain or reduction of inflamation where we know BB will hang out.
Like I said I would'nt recommend any steroids or NSAIDS for anyone with lyme disease...or chronic disease of any kind do to the
immunosuppression. However I know that topical steroids won't cause problems and now know that
inter-spinal collumn injections did'nt bother me also an inhaled like asthma steroid may not be
harmful...but I only used that for a little while recovering from pneumonia(albuteral and later some other thing I believe was ADVAIR.
Like anything else we lymies face....we're all different...and where or even when the steroids are administered may affect they're useful or
tdtid
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 10276
posted
Since I am one that knows first hand the nightmare I lived after steroids and also knowing I don't do well with pain medication.... what are the alternatives for pain in our bodies?
I live on ice packs and heating pads, but it just doesn't cut it. What other solutions are out there to get over these humps? I wish the steroids hadn't worked so well with the pain before paralysing me.
Cathy
-------------------- "To Dream The Impossible Dream" Man of La Mancha Posts: 2638 | From New Hampshire | Registered: Oct 2006
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Foggy
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 1584
posted
TOTAL DISASTER! Set my body on fire & made pain worse.
Abx, TENS, ice & PT excercies eventually helped me allot.
Didn't try VAX-D or DRX-9000 Traction systems but would do so instead of those wful injections.
Posts: 2451 | From Lyme Central | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Add me to the list of people for whom steroids triggered a major Lyme relapse.
My Lyme had been "manageable" for 3-4 years when I reinjured a disc. I did two predinisone tapers (5 days each) and then a cortisone injection in the disc. I know - what was I thinking? Well, obviously not about my Lyme... just the terrible pain I was in.
It took about 1-2 months before I realized the Lyme (or co-infections) went haywire again - attacking my colon and nervous system.
Now really struggling...
Posts: 443 | From The Wild West | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
Someone above said that "The good news is that cortisone usually wears off in about 3 weeks."
Someone PLEASE clarify this. If someone reads what that person said then gets a steroid shot and suffers, then this site is at fault.
If this is true then why I have suffered with increased pain and other symptoms after a steroid shot for the past three years. And why has everyone else except that particular individual relapsed or worsened?
The way I understand it, the infection spreads because the immune system is suppressed. Once the infection spreads, you have a worsened condition. It doesn't matter if the steroid is gone in 1 day.
Posts: 175 | From Colorado | Registered: Feb 2007
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posted
I also had the shots in the back. Doctors couldn't figure out why I was still in pain after a laminectomy that should have relieved everything. The injections brought on a real flare that culminated with what was probably Lyme meningitis. I didn't know I had Lyme then, but found out shortly after when the headaches didn't go away. A neurologist listened to me and had me take the test. I thank God that I came up positive, because it explains all the problems I had had since age 28. I am 56 now.
I have refused any more shots in the back and also in the knee. I would never risk being that sick again.
Posts: 35 | From SE, MA | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
My LLMD told me that I should avoid any use of steriods as they suppress your nature immune system and since Lymies' immune systems are compromised by the Lyme Disease, steriods can worsen your symptoms as your weakened immune system is further suppressed by the steroids and unable to fight off the lyme (or other) infection.
NO steroids for Lymies!!!!!
Posts: 438 | From SE Michigan | Registered: Jul 2001
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butchieboo
Unregistered
posted
Hey their southernCO...I think what Klutzo meant was that the actual cortizone disperses into the body in about three weeks....
The ensuing dammage steroids will cause is not a three week problem as we all know....
Immuosuppression of the individuals body warrior will, and has caused severe exacerbation due to unchecked dissemination...of TBD's,
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