hypergastric block?

[melanie626]

Pain MD is considering it, anyone? I am leary but trying everything. Any advice would b great.

[Jadia]

I am afraid I am not familiar with this one.

[Mrsrea]

My pain clinic made me do several of these. Personally I got no relief from them. It actually caused me more pain and stress. It traumatized me because the light sedation didnt work so i was fully awake and felt it all. it hurt me pretty bad. I just had a horrible experience. I say try it though to see if it will help you. I told the clinic I could no longer do anymore because they were to painful, expensive and getting no relief from them. They immediately dropped me as a patient and stopped my pain meds all at once. it was horrible. They wanted to keep doing them until they worked, I thought after 4 and nothing why would I keep doing them? Message me if you want to talk more. I dont want to scare you, this was just my experience.

[Erica1836]

my new pain doctor suggested a hypogastric plexus block but my insurance won't cover it. they said it has only been proven to show relief in cancer patients. I have had other nerve blocks and I had about the same experience as you. They were horrible...painful...and didn't work at all.

[mary124]

The PM doctor that I saw today (my regular one was out on family emergency in his home country; so I saw the "head doctor" who runs the clinic. He mentioned this type of block- (along with the last injection for my back-another story there) he asked me what am I doing now for my IC and I told him having hydros every 6-8 months-if I had this would it help me for a longer time period. He said lets just stick with the injection for your back...so seems to me that this don't help as much? any comments?

[Erica1836]

I saw my pain management doctor again Tuesday and after I told him that my insurance wouldn't cover it he seemed to not talk so highly of it. We mentioned private pay for it or appealing again but he changed from talking about how great it was to saying it probably wouldn't work. This really made me mad because I have spent the last 3 months in and out of the hospital fighting with my insurance company to try and get it when I could have been moving on to something else. So I guess my doctor basically said the same as yours.

[chairmenmeow47]

i'm having this done next week. i was kinda nervous, but after reading this thread, i'm a little scared now! thankfully it's covered by insurance, but i'm more worried about any residual pain. i can't afford to take time off to be sedated, so i will be awake. any further guidance would be appreciated :)

[chairmenmeow47]

well that was one of the most painful experiences of my life. i wonder how much easier it is with sedation. still though, it's fairly quick, so i'd still opt out of sedation to avoid the 7 hour fast.

unfortunately though, this didn't work for me :( i was in a lot of pain last night, but feel ok today. kinda tired and sore, but not excruciating like yesterday. guess it's back to the drawing board, at least i tried!

[adechka]

I had one of these and while it didn't help, it also wasn't very painful for me at all (I had no sedation, just local lidocaine injections prior to the main needles being inserted). I would say it's definitely worth a try, my pain doctor had said he had success with ~ 50% of his patients.

Addy

[chairmenmeow47]

i'm curious as to what makes the success rate. is it that the injection may not be done properly and that's why it does not work for some people? it just seems odd at how hit or miss the success rate is.