Maggie's Epidural Story - Lumbar Epidural Steroid Injection - Epidural Headache

I had a Lumbar epidural steroid injection at L5-S1 in July 2009. I already was having headaches etc on account of a fractured pelvis and ruptured disc,but about two weeks AFTER the epidural, my headaches got worse and I got roaringly-loud Tinnitus. The headaches are now less than they were and intermittent, but the Tinnitus is blaring like the world's loudest smoke alarm right inside my brain. I kept getting told that there's no cure, there's no answer, but I finally decided to not give up and researched online and realized that it's likely a CSF leak since it all started two weeks after that epidural.

I was offered a blood patch last spring, but I wanted imaging first, and the neuro I was seeing at the time quit and moved and it took 4 months to get another appointment with a new one last week. I finally am getting sent to get an MRI-myelogram (without contrast dye). The first Neuro referred me for an MRI with contrast, but I declined because I wanted the MRM (without injections, duh). They really just don't get it sometimes!

I will be asking for a second opinion regardless of the outcome, I want to get referred to someone who knows more than I do which is NOT the case with any of the local MDs I've seen --- don't they know how to do research???????

I am in Western Massachusetts, feeling lost but with a smidgen of new hope. I am supposed to get an apointment for the MRI (I asked for the heavily t2-weighted / myelogram series) this week.

I am mother of seven (all-natural births) --- I trashed my pelvis and spine (and neck, arm, leg etc lol) in a bicycle accident 2 years
ago... crazy that I did seven childbirths and then got an epidural... I was in so much pain at the time I was desperate and just didn't care about the risks, it was seven months after my accident at the time I was still in suicidally-bad pain... I had never really learned about the dangers of epidurals with childbirth because I was into doing it all naturally. Live and learn! When I first got these extra symptoms (that started two weeks after my epidural), I also had post-menopausal bleeding and they treated me like I was just hysterical crazy person.

any advice?

- Maggie age 52 brain ringing like a smoke alarm louder than airplane engines 24 hours a day for 1.5+ years!!! just a moderate
headache that doesn't even go away when I lie down anymore. ugh. Nausea is still bad but only tossing a couple times a month now. Overall, it's improved maybe 10-15 percent total from the day it started.

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