Tell me your epidural experiences please...

[MrsMar]

I'm a long way off this sort of thing (I'm only 17 weeks), but I do like to be informed! I'm thinking about the birth and I'd love to hear anyone's experiences of epidurals. No one I know has had one, and I'd like to be as informed as possible. At what stage are you usually given one? How effective was it? Are mobile epidurals any good? I'd love to hear how your's went... thanks xx

Hi
I had an epidural for my first birth 2 years ago and now regret it. I am rubbish with pain so decided early on I wanted one. I had one for over 12 hours, lying flat on my back, very numb. I was unable to move at all so what was a normal delivery turned into a nightmare due to the epidural. The baby turned due to my position, very common in epidural deliveries. She got stuck so I had to have +++++ interventions to get her out, 2x ventouse, manual rotation, which if you don't know what it is I will spare you the details and then a brutal forceps delivery with a large episiotomy. This all caused damage to my pudential nerve, bladder and rectum as a result I am very incontinent and am having every treatment under the sun, including surgery which means no further babies for me.
I wish the risks of an instrumental delivery had been discussed with me and that you are much more likely to have difficuties with an epidural. If at all poss go for a mobile epidural or pethadine or just stick it out. Having a baby is one or maybe two days out of your life, I wish I had had a more positive experience and wish I had not had the epidural!

By MKG on Thu 12-Apr-07 23:47:43
If you do consider having one make sure you check out the anestesiologist before hand. A friend of mine had an epidural that was not put in correctly, after she got home from her C-section she was sent back to the emergency room, because she was leaking spinal fluid, and getting terrible headaches. There is only a 1% risk in that happening I believe, but it's best to know the qualifications of the people on staff before hand.

This happened to me and it was truly the worst experience of my life. The headache was the most horrific pain ever - it spoilt the first week of ds's life for me. I couldn't do anything for him - my dh had to do everything and look after my dd as I was laid up in bed. I also ending up bottle feeding my ds as I was just too ill to breast feed.

Had an epidural, was then on the bed for the next 20 hours in labour being monitored. Didn't progress. Had an emergency c-sec.

Hello everyone, thanks a million again. So great to read such a variety of experiences. Cat64, that was something I was thinking. I think it's probably a case of pot luck, or maybe checking the hospital's statistics regarding these things in general, although God knows where you'd find this kind of information.

It's interesting that very few people seem to have had mobile epis. Is this just a myth or some kind of ideal that no-one ever actually achieves. It seems to me (a totally untrained and unexperienced medical person) that if an epi was requested/offered this would be the best way of undertaking it. It allows movement (presumably, hence the name) and could so remove some of the risk of intervention, which appears to be the biggest downside to conventional epis, while at the same time reducing pain to a more manageable level.

By the way, thanks a million for not judging me harshly for asking these questions. I'm far from committed to an epi, but sometimes the pressure to avoid most types of pain relief seems so strong.

With dd having an epidural was the best thing that could have happened . After being induced I was in extreme pain and all of a sudden it was gone and I could have quite happily stopped and had a cup of tea. It was managed well and by the time it came to push I could feel what I was doing but didn't have a lot of pain.

With ds, it didn't work, I could still feel pain down one side of my body. They tried fiddling with it, topping it up and giving me another one but unfortunately it still didn't work.

I have only read the OP, and not the rest of thread, but with my first I was induced, I had paracetamol, pethadine, epidural, gas and air, you name it I had it basically, and it was a thousand times more painful than my second induced labour with nothing but a sniff of gas and air!

It turned out I had a slight scoliosis, so they took somewhere around three quarters of an hour to get the injection in so it was having any effect. For a few weeks afterwards my mum and dh were marvelling at all the attempts they'd made - the base of my spine was bruised to hell with lots of different pricks.

Each time they put one in, I got a really bad pain all the way through my back. One of the attempts gave me a sudden crazy shock, so my foot exploded with a hot pain and went completely buzzy.

All of this made me really panic, until I was just shaking all over. I was convinced that a) I would end up paralysed for ever and b) they'd have to go straight to general anaesthetic - I've had a lot of GAs in my life, and the more you have, the more scary they seem. I was also worried that I wouldn't know when it was working and would tell them it was and really it wasn't. I was just a quivering mess.

Once someone had worked out I had a spine curvature, they got a colleague in to try. He got it in, I instantly started to feel numb. I felt absolutely 100% confident about the way they were ascertaining the lack of feeling. They were really lovely people, talking to me, relaxing, making me laugh, and the questions they asked me about numbness were exhaustive and used lots of techniques. I felt great, I relaxed, and I had a really lovely peaceful c-section.

So, the start was grim grim grim, but then it was a peach of a procedure.

I told them why I'd been so scared and shaking afterwards (I mean, while they were doing the incision etc) and they said it would have been impossible to paralyse me putting the needle in there, and I should have mentioned it earlier and they'd have been able to tell me that categorically. I think they really know what they're doing, really take care, and it isn't anything to be frightened of, HOWEVER, it is VERY easy to get frightened. I was also very very dehydrated and starving, having not eaten for about 24 hours and only drunk a thimble of water and dry-heaved the last of my morning sickness all morning long. I wasn't in the most rational/non shaky physical condition.

Good experience overall with both of mine. With ds1 they had to stick me twice for some reason but otherwise I was very happy with them. I had no pain - good since they were both sections! - but didn't feel "dead" like you would with a spinal.

Macneil, it was good to read your post as I also have scoliosis and have previously had two epidurals in which husband informed medics of this against my wishes as I was worried that they might refuse me one! Turns out he was right after all.
In general terms I am very pro epidurals, despite drawbacks such as reduced sensation when pushing. In both previous births I got to hospital almost fully dilated and, to be honest, felt that I had a right to ask for one. I think this was the right decision as both previous babies were very large involving cuts, tears, ventouse, forceps etc so would have involved some sort of pain relief anyway.
I'm due in June and having a planned c/s this time and it's the first time I'm actually a bit worried about an epidural. It's one thing for someone to inject your spine when you are in agony but quite another in the cold light of day!

Rosetip: I had a car accident as a kid which shortened one femur, but the body is good at rejigging inequality, so I believe my pelvis just tipped a bit to compensate, so I walk pretty normally and have never had any back pain, and no one ever thought to ask about it or check my back. It was only when they kept putting needles in different places and going 'why are you still numb?' and I kept jerking in shock that they got a second opinion. I would always tell them straight away, and despite the fact that he should of course have listened to you, well done your husband! They do need all the information, and it's much more straightforward when they know what to look for. Well, as you know, obviously.

As for the planned epidural being more scary? I would say not! Obviously mine isn't the best ad for this kind of thing, but it's always better not to be in pain, I think. We had about half an hour of them showing me pictures of a panda sitting down telling me how to round my back, and then as things got more frantic, they were going 'like the panda! remember the panda!' which was quite funny, but maybe it's better to not be thinking 'come on, come on, before I can't stand it any longer'?

Good luck, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

I had epidural at 3cm with ds2 - great but crap when it came to pushing - am sat here now having contractions with ds3, the first birds have started tweeting outside and seriously consdiering an epidural RIGHT NOW!!!!

Good luck Octo- do post your news if it happens today.
I know what you mean about the pushing, but after two already I guess you will know when enough is enough.
Best wishes.
Thanks for re-assurance about epidural macneil!

My epidural didn't work. First of all it lessened the pain. the anethatist was just walking out the door when I said "oh, that's much better it feels like period cramps now!" to ehich he replied "well, you shouldn't be feeling a thing!". Was then given another dose. Ended up with pain down one side of my body and after a short while it was as intense as it had be before the epidural. DS was delivered by forceps before they had a chance to try and rectify it so for me personally it meant more tubes, more drugs in my babies system, more machines attached to me, longer before I could be mobile for a 10 minute lessenning of pain. Pain down side one side of my body was not pleasent either altough it spread out again.

One thing I would warn you about, from my own personal experience - I also took pethadine and with the double epidural my baby was incredibly dopey for days and it took a very anxious four-day 'fight' in hospital to get him to breastfeed. So, if you plan to breastfeed, I would read up on that aspect of it.

Good luck. Am also 17 weeks pregnant and hoping for a much happier birth experience next time around.