wow randy,wish you relief.! We are all getting old......its not all the golden years as they say!! Said one for ya bud!!

If the dr is good you won’t feel anything while he does it Ice is your friend!!! Ice it down and don’t do much that day NO heat ....
as for surgery it ain’t going to get better The younger you are the faster you will heal from it I crushed bottom 2 levels in 2014 fell carrying a 70 lb electric motor straight down on my butt motor in my lap. Should had 3 levels fused but insurance said no Had trouble since Surgeon want to fuse next level up but going to try stimulating unit first IF I ever get over this rotator cuff “fix”

Good Luck Randy I look forward to seeing you at Minktoberfest

I work in a clinic that all we do is pain injections.

Never heard of a steroid injection directly into the disc, I suspect the steroid and a numbing agent are to be administered to the area where the disc has irritated the nerve and caused inflamation. The fluid that leaks out of a disc is highly irritant to nerve tissue.
There are such things as PRP and BMAC that are directly injected into discs. PRP = Protein Rich Plasma and BMAC = Bone Marrow Aspirate Concentrate. Both are for healing and regeneration of the disc material.

Some think surgery is the cure all/ end all for back pain. For some surgery is the answer, for others some type of treatment (usually involves a needle) is all that is needed. And for some surgery develops new issues. Each individual reacts differently to treatment.

We do a procedure called a discogram for surgeons to verify that the disc is in fact causing the pain. I have seen discs that looked nearly normal cause concordent pain and I have seen discs that look horrible not cause any pain at all.

Golf is not back friendly. The twisting and bending combined are a recipe for back problems. I see patients come through that play golf and have heard the doctors tell them the exact thing. You can play but you may be back for more "shots" later.

Good luck with the injection, hope it does the trick.
Knowing what I know, I would try every treatment short of surgery they offered. Surgery would be the last option for me.

They were short term for me.Surgery fixed the problem.
My insurance company required the shots before they
would ok the surgery.What a waste of time and money.

I just had a vertabra removed in my neck on the 18th.
It sucks not being able to do anything for a month or
more.

Danny

I had my first shot in lower back, had good relief for about a month, back to what it was now.
Cost me $4000 out of pocket with Insurance. Joke!

Right or wrong, insurance usually requires the injection route before the surgery. I agree that surgery is your last option, but in my case I had no choice. I've had so many MRI's that I wonder how healthy they are for a person.

I'm sure you are probably right about where the injection is going.

Golfing doesn't seem to bother my back but I did have to alter my swing some. I walk 80 to 90% of the holes while my friend drives the cart and that seems to do me some good also.

Thanks for all the well wishes from everyone.

Good luck Randy!

I have had the ESI injections a half dozen times, L4 L5 area. Been 7 months since my last back injection. I do go to Physical therapy gym daily on my lunch. Once you're a patient at the phys. Therapy gym and after insurance stops paying, I can pay $240.00 per year. This is going on my 4th year of daily work outs. Basically you're on your own at the gym, but all you have to do is ask or complain about something and the trainers will work with you at no cost. Hip injections are this week and next, first time for them, hope they work as good as the back injections.

Had the ladder bolted in in the '90s sometime. Yes toes feet are numb but that big pain is gone. I am pretty active and during the day sort of forget the numbness but at nite going to sleep it reminds me all about the pins and needles. Really annoying but beats the pain I used to have, heck I cant even remember what the pain was now, it was so long ago. Good luck......jk

Good luck Randy, I am hoping for the best for you. You might have to start playing from the senor tees

At first the doctors thought that was what I was going to have then when I got there the anesthesiologist looked at my file and decided to do tigger point injections instead of in the disk because that one went away from my spine, this was in my neck, and worked pretty good, my lumbar disks have went both ways but I’m still living with those and the vertebrae fused themselves naturally.

Thanks for all the personal experiences and the well wishes.

The only pain I felt was when they gave me a shot to numb my back up. It felt like a bee sting and lasted 10 seconds or so. Once they were done, my left leg felt like it had a heavy weight attached to it but nothing other than that.

Now I wait and see if it helps.