Muscle cramps after nerve blocks?

[Jackson]

Hi Budgie,

I've had 5 nerve blocks done and each time I've had cramping muscles in the back of the legs and also in my feet. If you notice, they make sure you can walk OK before discharging you from the hospital after the procedure. This is because it can affect the legs. I think its because the pudendal nerve is close to the sciatic nerve so some of the injection can get caught up in that nerve as well.

When my doctor did pudendal nerve blocks he used a nerve stimulator in addition to flouroscopy.

He said "the nerve stimulator guidance helps avoid inadverdent sciatic nerve block (sciatic nerve lies just lateral to pudendal nerve when near ischial spine)".

Also the nerve stimulator seeks pelvic floor contraction which the patient can feel (I felt the pulses). That way he knew he was close to the nerve before proceeding with the injection.

Just had a thought: I guess it's always possible the nerve stimulator could stir the pudendal nerve up. After my 24-48 anaesthetic wore off, there was a two week flare in pain . Fortunately this did settle back to baseline pain after two weeks

Cheers Jackson.

[Budgie]

Neil and blightcp,
I hope these most recent blocks are more helpful than they have been in the past. Best wishes!
I'm very glad to hear your new meds are helping, Neil! Are you tolerating the side effects well enough?
Kind regards,
Karyn

Hi Helen and Karyn

Thanks for the good wishes. My pain was doing well and then I saw my physio a week and a half ago and he's been working on my dorsal nerve. He managed to flare my pain up in the urethra and its only just starting to ease off again. I'm not really getting any bad side effects from the new meds. The morphine gives me terrible stomach ache so I take each one with an Omeprazole which stops it. Apart from feeling a bit more sleepy than normal I'm not getting any other issues.
How are you two doing?

Neil