United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Anyone have this? is it worth it? Does it help?

Hey, I wish I had a good reply for you, but Carrie had 2 stellate ganglion blocks and neither did any good for her pain. If the pain originated from her arm it would probably have been effective, but she has the ever too familiar C5-T1 avulsions, so the injections were the past the nerve disconnects making them ineffective for her.

C-ya, Dick

thank you! i have avulsions as well so this is good to know.
Robin

Have you heard of or tried IV with lidocaine? This has been the only relief from pain that my husband has seen. It can be done up to 4 times a year if needed, and can last for years! He spent 5 days as a inpatient and had the lidocaine, that was in June 07 and none of his pain has returned. His injury was over 18 months ago.

Any more questions about it feel free to email me and ask
Beth

yeah, I tried it, it didn't work for me. I have three of avulsions,C5, C6, and C7. If I remember correctly, the infusion was two hours long. All it did, was give me a bit of Bell's palsy. The right side of my face was kind of numb for about five hours and my right eye drooped. If your insurance picks it up, I'd give it a try, no harm in trying.

Best of luck,
Chris

Hey Chris,

I know you've done extensive research on this injury. Would the Lidocaine infusion be similar to Ketamine infusions? I've seen a couple of articles concerning Ketamine, but that was a few years ago, with kinda mixed results, mostly negative. I'm glad the Lidocaine worked for Beth's husband, hopefully it'll work for Carrie. It's surely worth trying.

C-ya, Dick

Hey Dick,
I have never tried a ketamine infusion, but I did have little success with ketamine ointment. The ketamine ointment is absorbed into the bloodstream, and if it's used continually it will keep a small base level of ketamine in your system, which is probably why I may have gotten some relief using it.

There were clinical trials happening in Germany a few years back for people with serious chronic pain. Patients were put under a ketamine induced coma for four to five days, with some very good success. I understand quite a few Americans have flown over there for this treatment. I always told myself that if things got really bad I would give it a go. My understanding is that it works like a "hard reset" on the whole neurological, specifically the part of the system that deals with pain, but some patients have lost some of their short-term memory as well. But we're talking about people who have pain that is utterly destroying their life, and on the verge of suicide, so that trade-off, in my books, is acceptable.

The links I posted below used to all work, I'm not sure if the RSD foundation's website is just temporarily down, and that's why those links don't work right now. Hopefully they'll work tomorrow.

I don't know the specific differences between lidocaine and ketamine, but I believe that work totally different. It's been so long since I've researched both of them I have forgotten the details.

Cheers,
Chris


http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=305492&page=1

http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/showthread.php?t=77221

http://www.howtocopewithpain.org/blog/1 ... -thinking/

http://www.rsdfoundation.org/en/CNN_RSD.htm (good CNN Video on story)

http://www.rsdfoundation.org/en/NeurologyToday.html

http://www.rsdfoundation.org/en/Bret...archVideo.html

http://www.rsdfoundation.org/en/Eliz...mineFLASH.html

http://www.rsdfoundation.org/test/ketamineabstract.html