EPIDURAL NIGHTMARE

by Brittany

I had my daughter on July 5th, 2010 and I ended up getting the epidural because I was having front and back contractions!

Everything went good and it did take away the pain I was in! I was in labor for 27 hours and pushed for 3 and a half!

When I left the hospital I felt great and I couldn't wait to get out of there. I was fine the whole day that I left the hospital until that night when I went to my boyfriend parents' house and I started to feel pain in my left leg.

I didn't think anything of it and thought it was perfectly normal.

Well that night my daughter started to cry because she was ready to be fed and I couldn't move my left leg! The pain was off the charts!!

I have never felt more pain in my life. If i moved my leg even a hair i was crying from pain! So I decided to wait it out. The next day the pain was not better I couldn't get out of the bed to do anything! I could barely move because If i did move my leg it sent a shock through my body!

I ended up having to call an ambulance to bring me to the hospital because I was not able to move!

When I got to the hospital they gave me pain medicine after pain medicine and it was not touching the pain at all!

I had a MRI, ultrasound, cat scan, and x-rays done and they found nothing! I ended up spending 7 days in the hospital! and they still had no answers as to why this happened and what could have caused it! after about the 5th day i decided the pain was still there but i wasnt going to sit in the hospital without my daughter any longer!

so I decided to get out of the bed and try to move my leg! The pain was so bad still after the 5th day that all i could do was put my foot on the floor and scoot it across the ground with my toes! and On the 6th day i was able to try and walk it was horriblely painful and i wouldnt have been able to do it without the walker i was using and someone holding me up to do it!

I practiced it all day and on the 7th day i practiced it and the last thing they had me do is walk up the stairs with a harness on me and if i could do that they were gonna let me go home!

so i pushed myself to do that! The reason I think they ended up sending me home was because there was nothing they could really do for me!

It took me a month to get back to walking normal! and yet to this day if I over work myself my leg is in horrible pain and I can barely walk! I never ended up finding out what had happened until I went to the doctor and she said something alone the lines of oh i see you had some nerve damage and that was news to me!

I was never told what happened or what it might have been from but now after reading everything! I think I got nerve damage from the epidural! I know the chances of this happening are supposed to not be high but what i went through was a living nightmare! I would never want this to happen to anyone! so please take this as a serious matter!

Im having my second baby 11 months later and Im so scared because that happened to me! the pain from birth couldnt be nearly half as bas as a month of horrible horrible pain and having to probably deal with it for the rest of your life!