So I’ve been dealing with neck pain due to herniated disks and wrist pain due to a tear and other things from a car accident back in January. This has been going on for 9 months. I was told by several doctors that the tear will never heal on its own and it would need surgery to fix it. Obviously doctors want to leave surgery until the last resort. I have been going to physical therapy, September 17th I started wearing a custom splint 24/7. I’ve tried different prescription medicine and they don’t help with my pain. I tried cortisone shot in my wrist directly to the tear. I tried trigger point injections in my neck and that also didn’t help me with my pain. I got my EMG results and it shows a certain herniated disk is causing some of my wrist symptoms. My opinions are try epidural injection into my neck and see if it will help with my neck and possibly my wrist pain or surgery. Since prescription medicine, cortisone shot and trigger point injections didn’t help me with my pain I’m not sure that I want to go through another needle situation for it to not give me any pain relief. If the epidural injections does help the relief would only be temporary. And with all surgery it’s not guaranteed that it will fix my wrist pain especially if it’s not only the tear that is causing my pain. I’m conflicted on what choice I should make. I did ask my sister and only she thinks that I should try the epidural injections because it’s less invasive than getting surgery. Also the surgery recovery process is a long one. 6 weeks in a cast where I can’t get that hand wet so I would have to wear a bag over my hand when I shower. I can’t lift anything heavier than 5lbs during recovery. There’s a possibility that I will have stitches. After the cast gets removed PT will be important and more recovery time. I forgot what he said how long the full recovery time would be.
