http://www.spineuniverse.com/display...rticle180.html

Hi Sandra,

I have a dx of arachnoiditis and this article sure talks spot-on about what happened to me.

It followed a 2nd laminectomy, made necessary when the surgeon punctured the dura and failed to close the leak. One week after the 1st surgery I was getting ready for discharge and when I showered I noticed a puffy area below my incision. The nurse examined it, called the doc, and I was back in surgery the following Monday. And he screwed up again!

Unable to find the puncture, he grafted a bit of muscle to the dura (the same way we used to patch inner-tubes). That piece of muscle created enough pressure on the dura to result in it rubbing against the arachnoid, eventually resulting in scar tissue forming on it.

I have many of the symptoms listed in this article, and nothing has helped me. My doc told me the pump would help with this pain, and I trust him, but it is nice to read that someone else says the pump will help.

I'm saving this article because it puts a medical imprimatur to what I try to tell people. It is rarer than RSD: There was an arachnoiditis forum at BrainTalk, but people rarely dropped in, and nearly all of those who posted developed the disorder as the result of injection of contrast dyes for MRIs in the 1980s.

Those dyes are no longer used, but I saw a TV ad from a lawyer that talked about the more recent dyes creating new problems that, as I recall, may be worse than arachnoiditis.

Thanks for posting this, it offers more encouragement for my upcoming trial...Vic

Hi Vicc,
I am so sorry about the problems you had with the laminectomy.
Thanks for all the help
Love
Alison

Vic Hi..
When I read up on this my jaw hit the floor.. I have all those symptoms.. cant remember ar what point they started early on.. before I had any lumbar blocks mabie but after RSD.. I was assuming those symptoms were part of the RSD.. now I am just very confused.

hugz,
Sandra

psst.. I am so glad it has offered you some incouragement bud.

Hi again Sandra,

A common story about med students is that many of them read about a disease, see something that sounds similar to something going on with them, and decide they're about to die.

I'm not saying thats whats happening with you, but I suggest that you don't painc based on what you read here; these symptoms are found in many different sorts of neurological dysfunctions. Talk to your doc and see what he/she has to say (assuming you trust your doc and never get the feeling you're getting a brush-off).

The worst pain of my arachnoiditis is across my lower back and is difficult to describe; the best I can come up with is that it feels like someone made a small ridge of sand and folded a layer of muscle over it. A gritty tube about the size of a straw that causes a pain that I just can't deal with. Oxycodone keeps it under control, but if nothing did, I'd probably pull the plug. It's that awful.

I also have what others describe as "twinklers" (small bursts of electrical-like burning that can last several hours), and "sparklers" (like twinklers, but much more intense). The docs don't know whether the arachnoiditis or other nerve damage causes the pain, weakness and atrophy in my legs.

I never suffered any bowel, bladder or sexual dysfunction, but the latter really doesn't matter because my back won't let me have any fun anyway.

MRIs can usually identify arachnoiditis, but they're really only necessary if other neurological exams haven't already excluded it as a possibility.

I won't say don't worry, but try not to let it overwhelm you. Talk to your doc and get a neurological consult if she/he thinks it could be useful...Vic

May the Most High lavishly bless us with miracles of healing of hearts and minds, bodies and souls, circumstances and happenstances, all working out for good in our awe of His mercy and calling upon the life He gave us.

Say, "Amen!" somebody.

Dr. Dean Reeves has a nice tutorial on a type of nerve transmission mediated by a protein on the nerve receptor that can turn rogue and propagate pain and tissue degradation. When this type of nerve experiences pressure all around it, it tends to turn rogue. Swelling is just such a pressure, eh? So now it's not only going to hurt it's going to degrade the nearest tissue, like a lion trying to gnaw its paw off to release itself from a trap. That disk degrades. Connective tissue weakens. This becomes a cycle in need of breaking, not aggravating with further assaults.

So the dessicating monosaccharide, the simple sugar mannitol, is brought in as a topical transdermal that baffles this pain/degradation response. Dextrose injections are given via real-time sonogram. These shift fluid balances, stop nerve-to-nerve propagation cascades, and are likely to have some curious regulatory effects. Mannitol, for example, has been found to slow the propagation of nerve-deranging proteins implicated in Parkinson's. Mannitol also opens the blood-brain barrier gates, so beware as one does not wish to introduce toxins into one's noodle. De-tox. These simple sugars may induce a kind of handy protein degradation, a targeted glycation, that tells these nerve receptor proteins to chillax.

Enzymes that will help denature what are trash [nerve receptor] proteins, like those found in papaya (meat tenderizer) and pineapple (fresh enzyme-active pineapple melts gelatin so canned is used therefore avoid canned...) are used by athletes to shorten injury rebound and healing. Do this thing!

*edit*