First time so please bear with me! I am 48 yr old female, have had back pain for many years, basically untreated until about 5 yrs ago. I fell roller skating three years ago, crushing my wrist. I went through 3 surgeries from my orthopedic, were unsuccessful was in a lot of pain and numbness but chose to ignore it for a year, just treated by my pcp for pain. He decided to do an MRI of lumbar, thoracic, and cervical, also my wrist. Mri showed bulging disc on all levels, osteoarthritis, DDD, and cervical stenosis. Went to hand specialist for wrist, he did 2 more surgeries, a total wrist fusion and carpal tunnel release(Nerve cond. showed moderately severe damage and also showed cervical nerve damage. This was in Oct/Nov 2008, at the same time received 3 epidural shots for neck pain, very easy, after third did bring some relief. Continued seeing pain specialist (he does the shots and prescribes my meds now) now a year later my arm and hand is very numb starting to show symptoms of the same as before I had the TWF and CTR. I went in last week to begin another round of epidural shots, told the DR I was having more pain than usual lately, he sedated me slightly, and when he entered with the needle my left arm (injured arm) flew up involuntarily and I screamed. They held me down, and continued and it did it again. It had to have hit a nerve, that was the worst pain in my life. He explained afterwards that is the reason they cannot knock you all the way out, but he never said exactly what happened. I have had a very sore weekend, my arm is very sore and numb and tingly. He did give me more pain meds to get me through the weekend. I have another scheduled for the 29th, at this point I don't think I can go through with it. He is a great Dr. and I am sure will explain when I go back. My question is, is this common and can there be permanent damage. Also. on the fluoroscope, can the Dr see the nerves? He did show me the screen afterwards and said he did get the spot he wanted, it was tough getting there. Just really want to know also if this will happen again, any suggestions otherwise? Thanks, I know this is a long post, but thought my history could help some.