Risks of regular epidurals?

[squigglywig]

To cut a long story short I have to go into hospital once a month at the moment needing ventilation and a lot of pain relief (abdominal).

Various opiate concoctions are no longer working and I'm not keen on being "put to sleep" because of how long it takes me come round from the drugs, delaying discharge etc. etc.

Short of a stem cell breakthrough there is not much they can do to stop me getting ill but one suggestion to make the whole thing easier is for me to have an epidural as soon as I arrive in the ITU and avoid all this faffing on with inadequate opiates.

What are the risks of having regular (monthly) epidurals?

bump x

anyone?

nobody?

google 'epidurals' 'risks'

lots will come up.

I am sorry to hear you are not well.
nhs direct leaflet

a different source

I think you need to see your Consultant to talk the issues through

HTH

I only seem to be able to find information about obstetric epidurals and so the risk information doesn't relate to having them very often.

I wondered if there were any different risks associated with having them often?

Quite Squiggle.

That's why I think you need to see your Consultant.

Thanks for the links. Yes, you are probably right and I need to talk to the docs. All the consultants (all 4 of them ffs) are having a meeting on Oct 16th. I will badger them then. I'm likely to get sick before then though - at the end of September and was hoping to arm myself with some info before then. I guess it's an odd situation though.