Spinal fusion symptoms and conditions

I was prescribed Keflex following spinal fusion surgery and noticed immediate reactions. These included: ringing in ears, hot and cold flashes, loss of taste and smell, and terrible metallic taste in mouth.

I had 2 kenalog injection in my sacroiliac joints. I had these injections within 2 weeks of each other. I had them done because I suffer from a chronic back pain, had had a spinal fusion and within 4 months began suffering unbearable pain in my hip and leg,it felt as though my hip was dislocated.
The side effects I have suffered are as follow: extreme hunger,weight gain, puffiness in my face and stomach, excessive hair growth on my face. The wierd part of the excessive facial hair is that before I had these injections done I always left handfuls of hair in the shower and when I put hair products in my hair, since the injections I hardly lose a single strand of hair.I also had severe night sweats,mood swings, and I have yet to get my period since I had the injections.
Above all of this I also suffered steroid withdrawal. Like I said I has these 2 injections within 2 weeks of the other. Abpput 3 weeks after the last injection I began to have a creepy crawly feeling in my arms, cold sweats, and vomiting. I called my Dr who said it was withdrawal from the steroids. I couldnt believe this. I did some research online . I discovered that this does happen if you have more than one injection within 3 weeks. I guess it does make sense because when you take oral steroids you are almost always given a taper pack. You are weened off of them so that you don't go into withdrawal. With an injection obviously you can not be weened but if you have the injections too close together, withdrawal can happen.

The only advise I have is that if you can wait to have your injections more than 3 weeks apart...do it because the withdrawal is miserable.

I have been on this med for 4 days....could not figure out why i was having such severe pain. had surgery for a bladder stimulator, and the doctor prescribed this to me to take post surgery. but heres the thing, they tried to give it to me through an iv before the surgery, and had a SEVERE reaction to it. i also suffer from severe lower back pain(I'm getting a spinal fusion next month) and i just thought the pain was from that. but the yesterday, i woke up and could hardly move. my neck, shoulders and upper back were hurting, burning and aching. i can hardly move my shoulders up and down. i also am experiencing the tightness in my chest, rapid heart beat, headache, dizziness. another weird thing is that i have what i can only describe as a sunburn on the back of my hands and arms. i have stopped taking the med, but i want to know is does all of this going away? i have so many other health problems, i cant deal with this. someone please let me know

My husband just started taking Vytorin again after about 2 to 3 months of being off of it-because of the cost of the prescription. He started developing severe back pain. He has had spinal fusion 10 years ago and it was so severe he felt like one of the rods had broken. Pain is now a little better after a few days, but he still can't stand for anyone to move in the bed when he is sleeping. After finding this site I am tempted to have him quit taking Vytorin for awhile and see if the pain subsides. He says he hurts worse at night after taking the medicine.

I have been taking Neurontin for 2 months. I didn't think it was really helping because I still couldn't function normally. I have had 3 disk surgeries on L4/5, and still have severe pain in my right hip and down my right leg all the way to my foot. I am told there is scar tissue build-up in the area causing the nerve pain. I started taking Neurontin in small doses and have built up to 1200mg 3 times a day. I still couldn't walk more than 20 feet without leaning on something, but the pain was noticably less severe. My doctor put me on Trileptal instead, and the first day off the Neurontin was a nightmare...the pain was worse than ever. I went back to the Neurontin immediately. I have experienced some weight gain, but have attibuted that to no exercise. It does seem to make me forgetful, tired and somewhat depressed, but without it, the pain is completely debilitating. I want my life back, but I don't know what to do from here. Neurontin has helped the pain to a more tolerable level, but if I still can't even walk, I'm not even close to functioning normally. If anyone has a suggestion, I would love to hear it...thanks.

Injections of Kenalog done via x ray machine, 3 times in a period of 2 months and trigger point injections with Kenalog done once after the second one did not work. Felt great after the first one, lasted for 4 weeks. Had another one done (second one) for the same problem, L5-SI (spinal fusion with rods and cages 7 years ago, developed sciata 4 months ago and pain doctor said the Kenalog shots were needed so I took her advice.
Needless to say, I was not informed of the warnings. I have been in bed now for 4 weeks, have no energy, feel dizzy and disorientated. Cannot even walk down the street without feeling like collapsing, hip pain and leg movement is deterioting and I am scared. Feel sick all of the time, cannot do laundry or dishes, feel so depressed as a result of these shots. Arm numbness and loss of motion, tingling in my fingers, burning pain in buttocks, down leg, and calf and down to foot. Also having muscle spasms in my left arm.
Never again will I do this. I will be speaking with my pain doctor next week and will inform her that these shots made me worse.
Thanks for listening to me, I need to go to bed again. I was such an active person before all of these shots were given to me. I feel so sad all the time and crying too often when I should be happy. I am a 47 year old female.
Any advice one can give would be appreciated.

Where to begin. I swear I could be the poster child for the reasons why NOT to take prednisone or medrol.

I am 27 years old use to take prednisone. I stopped resonding to pred, roughly 4 years prior to my new pediatric doc at that time. The did a "steriod connectic" test where they can figure out if your body repsonses to prednisone. They give you a certain dose and take blood through an IV every 30 mins for up to 18 hours , well I wasn't there for 18 hours. It left my system after 2, I think.. Up to this point in time, I have had a Spinal Fusion in 92, due to Infantile Scoliosis, but the Pred didn't HELP AT ALL. I had secondary to my disease. I had SEVERE Osteoprosis, my 15 year old body looked like an 80 year old woman. The docs swore they had switched x-rays.lol

So I went from Pred to Metholypredislone( Medrol) stronger than Pred. They started to treat me around 15 with bone suppliments, like Miacalcin, Fosamax, etc. now I get the IV drug every 3 months call Pamidronate .. I am finally stable with my osteoprosis after being on this for 4 years..I guess the usual dose is only for two years..

I had a toxic reaction from the medrol/pred, I woke up with a nerophathy & miopathy( loss of nerve and muscle stegnth.) I could barley MOVE.. I had to rebuild the stength and re-work my nerves and muscles. I have osteo-arthritis, compress fractures in my back. I bruse like someone beat me. I get the worst headaches. I was tested for migranes, but it was the pressure in my vessules in my head, were so bad from the pred/medrol. Oh yeah, I have the the hypher activity when on it like ADHD & ADD. I act like a diabetic when on them too. My sugars "yo-yo", the jump , then get really low.

That's all I can think of, it's hard though because steriods have saved my life, yet I swear sometimes the side effects aren't worth it. I can say I have been off those things for almost 3 years.. So things are going good. :-) Feel free to email me with any questions.

Kelli