Does having an epidural hurt? Thoughts on having one

[StarlyBeee]

Hi all - I previously have said no way will I have a epidural cause the thought of a catheter in my back terrifies me but the closer I'm getting to giving birth the more I'm considering it. Looking for experiences - does it hurt to have the epidural put in your back and what did it feel like? Also how long after the birth were you still feeling like a dead weight

Thanks all

X

The actual injection didn't hurt and it was far preferable than my previous experience of pethidine. However 25 years on I occasionally get a nagging pain at the site and a weird feeling of my back giving way iyswim

I am starting to think I am the only one for whine the epidural did not work at all.
It did nothing.
I ended up having a spinal block and that was amazing at the end (in theatre)
Do people get C_sections with just an epidural? I could feel everything!

No pain at all for me....was probably minimalised by the contractions I was having! It's a very minor discomfort.

You can have gas and air whilst it's going in. Which makes you feel a bit drunk and giggly so you dont really feel it 🤣

And yes @autumntoowet got a csection in the end on epidural. But it was emergency so not time to do anything else apart from GA so I went with it. Felt a lot but it was more pressure pushing and pulling rather than pain

Autumntoowet

I had a c section under epidural and it worked really well. It took an age to site though but I was lying on my side when did it.

My 2nd one I was sat up and that never worked despite repeated top ups and adjustment of the catheter. Eventually it just started leaking everywhere (not sure what that meant). It didn't work at all for pain relief but just made my right leg numb.

My sister tried to have 2 c sections under epidural and they just never worked at all. The first they moved to a GA as it was an emergency. The second was planned so they gave her a spinal instead.

I don't remember any pain either time from epidural. My legs were numb for some hours afterwards.
If you want an epidural I wouldn't be deterred for that reason.
I hated thought of catheter but you cant tell you've got it - or I couldn't anyway.

Retired anaesthetist here. We inject local anaesthetic with a very fine (25 gauge) needle first, to numb the area before passing the larger epidural needle through the ligaments in your back. We then thread an epidural catheter through the needle and take the needle away, leaving the catheter taped up your back and over your shoulder, connected to a syringe driver, which pumps a mixture of local anaesthetic and opioid into the epidural space around your spine.
Because we can’t see inside your back, we have to locate it by feeling the bony landmarks on your back and then the feel of the ligaments as we go through them.

In obese women, we can’t feel the bones at all, so it’s a matter of experience (and a little luck!) whether we can site it or not.
If we can’t get the catheter to the right place, then it won’t work at all. It’s usually a fairly junior anaesthetist who is first on call for the labour suite, and they may have difficulty.
If you’re getting distressed with repeated failed attempts, ask if they can get their consultant in to take over.
In terms of pain relief, epidurals are the gold standard. Nothing else matches it, so if you’re concerned about labour pain, go for it.
For Caesarians we usually perform a spinal instead. It’s a much thinner single shot needle (no catheter) that goes further (right into your cerebrospinal fluid) and produces a much faster onset block, with more motor block, so you have no muscle tone in your whole abdomen and legs, facilitating surgery. An epidural is a good sensory block, but we aim at minimal motor block, so you can still push in second stage.

I notice one PP having trouble with the nomenclature- a “catheter” is just a hollow tube. You can have urinary catheters, epidural catheters, biliary catheters, etc.
I’ve inserted thousands of epidurals over a 36 year career. They’re excellent when they work, and very disappointing when we can’t get them sited - but we always provide alternative analgesia if that’s the case.

@Babdoc that exact thing happen to me. I had a junior dr have two failed attempts, in his defence I couldn't stop being sick and was having strong contractions so it wasn't easy! They called the older consultant who got me first time. He was an angel to me in that moment!! It was heaven!!!

I could then top my pain relief up when needed, which they then did when it ended in an EMCS.

With my ELCS I just had the spinal which I thought hurt more for some reason.

OP just go in with an open mind, you may not need it, you may do. Childbirth is so different for each baby. It's not the end of the world having one by any standards. Good luck!

babdoc

What's the difference between having an epidural sited laying down as opposed to sitting up?

Lying down it was sited with some difficulty but it did work for the c section. I had pre eclampsia so they wanted an epidural because it can lower blood pressure, so they said.

My 2nd labour they administered it with me sitting up. It never gave me pain relief, kept leaking and simply gave me one dead leg.

Is there a difference between the positions that explains this?

Funny enough @Hearhoovesthinkzebras the older consultant I mentioned made me lay down and that's how he did it successfully. The jr Dr was trying it sat up, so would be interested to know this too. Sorry to hijack the thread @StarlyBeee

Did not hurt. I refused to countenance it for #1 birth as I was scared of the thought but didn't need it in the end.

#2birth I needed it. Was having back to back labour so most difficult bit was getting it sited as I wasn t able to sit still properly. But epidural wasn't sore.

Siting it, the aneasthetist has to be careful and I felt a few electrical like zaps as the catheter went in l. But this was not painful and was the aneasthetist checking the location. It didn't hurt coming out either. Most uncomfortable bit was the catheter in my hand I had for syntocinon for my induction.

It is a good pain relief option.

I see. There must be something wrong with me then 😫
Because I was prepared for an emergency CcSection and as the epidural was doing nothing the anaesthesiologist did a spinal block.
This also took a long time to work but when it did... ohhhh 😀😀😀😀😀
The needles or procedures did not hurt at all.
I had a very painful back to back labour so the pain was coming from there

I have quite a different experience from others - just for balance

I had to have a spinal block which is apparently a smaller needle than an epidural.

I wasn’t in labour, so I didn’t have contractions at the same time, which I’m sure makes it easier but nothing to distract from the sensation of the injections either. It was also a very high stress situation as one of my twins wasn’t moving and there were problems with his heart rate.

My back muscles were all in spasm because of my giant twin bump, so the needles kept bending.

It took 7 attempts and a very senior anaesthetist to get it in. Each attempt required a local and honestly I found even the locals really really horrible. The spinal went in wrong a couple of times, which was like having my leg torn off. I’m always surprised when people say they didn’t feel much because for me it was extremely painful, but again I think that things must be very different if you’ve already had hours of awful pain, and if you’re flooded with labour hormones etc.

I am terrified of needles anyway so this was honestly my worst nightmare - and I actually had a cs booked weeks later as I have tokophobia.

Obviously I survived it but I couldn’t personally go through it again. They were just about to do a general when they got it in finally.

After that it was fantastic because it wears off gradually, meaning the pain came on gradually and could be managed far better than when you wake up after surgery from a general in instant pain.

The bruising was quite spectacular too.

Just my honest experience, don’t want to scare anyone off! I don’t know anyone else who’s had an experience like this and the anaesthetists said it was very unusual.

A word of explanation for PPs who found the insertion painful.
We can’t see inside your back, so we put the needle in using bony landmarks and “feel” for the ligaments.
If we angle a little off course with the needle, we can ping the point of it into a spinal nerve, which causes a horrible pain like an electric shock down the route of that particular nerve. Tell us as soon as you feel anything like that, and we’ll withdraw the needle a little and change angle.
Similarly, if we go off course and touch the needle against one of your vertebrae, these bones are covered in very sensitive periosteum, and that hurts too. Again, tell us if we’re hurting you and we’ll reposition the needle. Although we can actually tell if we touch bone, it has a different feel to ligament, so we are usually apologising and moving it at the same time as your “Ouch”.
In a slim patient with easily felt landmarks, we can almost always get the epidural in without any of the above. However the modern generation of labouring mothers is older and more obese than previous ones, and it’s getting more difficult to perform epidurals.
Would you believe we have had to provide extra long needles (12cm instead of 8) to get through all the extra layer of fat over the spine, and even these are sometimes not long enough. That’s not being judgmental, simply saying that it’s technically more difficult in larger patients.

Many people seem to take a selfish attitude and feel they can"get away with it", which is not fair on the other children and their families

Even in pregnancy you could feel my spine perfectly fine, and even the most senior anaesthetist struggled and told me afterwards that he’d had to take a very pronounced angle to finally get it in. I must have a weird back. They did ask if I did Pilates as my muscles were so solid it was causing them trouble - nope!

Sorry, quoted random post there!

For me having the epidural put it was the worst pain I've ever had as my contractions were going strong by this point and it just hurt. It was hard to stay in the right position and the woman doing it failed 5 times before they brought it someone else, dont let a trainee do it! Before anyone says it's because I was over weight this is not the case I had a perfect BMI for my first.
After though was great actually managed to sleep a little, it lasted 20 mins a time and had to press a button to keep it topped up.
After I gave birth I could walk pretty much straight away and have had no issues after.

Oh and the feeling of the tube going in each time was absolutely horrid too. I dont want to put you off though it was worth it, for my next I'm going to ask for a senior person to do it first time.

I opted for an epidural after around an hour and a half on the tens and gas & air and it was the best thing I did.
I found getting into position the hardest part as I was contracting and using gas and air but the anaesthetist was behind me, with another in front of me, getting me into the right position and holding me still which was incredibly helpful and strangely comforting.
I didnt find it painful at all, but maybe that was masked by the contractions! They were great at observing me and knew when to stop to let me contract with the gas and air.
I ended up with an emergency section, by which point the epidural had started to leak / wear off so I needed a spinal in the end but for the many hours of labouring with the epidural, I would go so far as to say I was very comfortable!!

I had one and didnt feel a thing when i got it, probably because labour pain was excruciating and i was more focused on that.
They did do it wrong though and my spinal fluid was leaking out which caused me massive spunal headaches.
I was told it would go away on its own once the puncture would would seal, but it didn't on its own and after a week i had to go in to have it sealed. After that i was completely fine, but the first week after birth with that headache was hell.
I didnt feel the pain laying down, but whenever i was upright it was the worst pain ive ever felt. I showered laying down on the floor. I basically spent the entire week flat. God bless my mum who stayed with me and picked the baby up and handed him to me to feed every 2h.

That's interesting @Babdoc (and your name makes sense now )

Like most, Epidural wasn't painful at all - in fact the opposite, in may ways - a very welcome relief after 24 hours of hurting. It definitely worked for me, and I didn't have 'dead legs' afterwards. Can't remember now how soon afterwards I was able to walk about (he's 23 now)

First epidural I felt the electric shocks that others have described but second I felt nothing.

Unfortunately, the epidural stopped working really quickly during both labours (identical back to back drip induced labours) so my experience of the actual epidural isn't all that positive but insertion was fine.

Same here Billy. Mine stopped working as well, still had to puff away on the G&A which made me feel like a right wimp at the time! I then had a c-section and my legs were numb for a good while after which conflicts with a comment above about them wearing off quite quickly. I'm going for my birth debrief tomorrow and it's one of the things I want to cover with the midwife.

An obstetric anaesthetist here... Remember when you had dental work done and the local anaesthetic hurt... Same thing but lasts seconds.

A small catheter 1 mm wide is left in your back so your epidural can be topped up whenever you feel pain or in the event it's needed for a caesarean. You shouldn't be able to feel it.

You'll be able to get up an walk several hours after your last top up. But to be honest probably won't feel like wanting to after what you've gone through with delivery etc!

No-one gives you a good medal for going through the process with no pain relief. Be pain free and enjoy labour rather than struggle through in pain!

I had an epidural both times as I had to have synthetic hormone drip. It was a mobile epidural, so they turned it off and I was able to push both babies out unassisted. It was so effective I managed to sleep from 5cm- being able to deliver my baby with the first baby. Which was completely invaluable for me as I'd been awake and in Labour on and off for 48 hours by then.

I was very much of the hypnobirthing, positive pain ilk until I was faced with Labour and complications and then I chose an epidural and have never regretted it.