I am a labor and delivery nurse. Your experience is indeed unusual, but as you painfully found out, possible. It makes my blood boil every time I hear an anesthesiologist get a consent from a patient and never, ever mention infection as a possible complication. They mention the rare incidence of nerve damage, and the not so rare incidence of accidental spinal, but not infection.
However, most women in childbirth who want an epidural would not be put off by any sort of statistic as to possible complications! If they are in extreme pain and want the epidural, they want it NOW!
I would suggest with your next pregnancy you do not have an epidural. Get a doula, look into hypnotherapy, have access to massage and a nice tub to labor in.
Good luck!
Thank you very much for your information. My beautiful son is doing wonderfully. We had a rough start but all in all he was definately worth it!!!
I did see one of my lab reports that said 3+ Staphylococcus so I would think that your assumption is correct in how this happened. I am glad to know however that this is not common because I certainly wouldn't want anyone else to have to go through what I did for the first two months of my new son's life!
Thank you so much!
Dear New:
I am sorry to hear about your abcess. An abcess would likely not cause a disc bulge. Likely you either have had this for quite some time or it was the result of the pregancy, before the abcess. The bad outcome of the epidural is highly unusual in my experience. I would imagine that your parathesias (pain) will resolve over time.
The most common etiology of the abcess was the open wound (needle into the back during delivery). Most of the time the site is covered but during the delivery process the covering can come off, and likely this was what happened to you.
By the way, congradulations on the new child in the family. I hope that he/she is healthy.
Sincerely,
CCF Neuro MD