Question
QUESTION: Hi, thanks for you time and expertise.  I herniated a disk in January and have been seeing a chiropractor regularly up until the week before last.  I was still having trouble with pain radiating down into my thigh and he refered me to a pain management/spine specialist.  Both he and the pain management specialist decided to go with an epidural steroid injection to see if it would calm things down.  I had that 10 days ago and was actually feeling pretty good.  I was out of town all of last week at a conference and was not able to see my chiropractor for followup though.  I saw him today and he did nothing different than normal, but the "zinging" pain that I haven't had for 3 weeks returned shortly after he stretched me.  He was baffled, I was baffled, and feeling pretty bad.  He felt horrible, but I know it was nothing that he did because he didn't do anything different.  How is it possible for that pain to "go away" and now all of a sudden return?  I am quickly getting really tired of this whole thing and want to return to my active lifestyle.  Are we taking the right route?
ANSWER: Hello Sara. Sorry to hear of your condition. Well I guess all I can really say is in 20/20 hindsight, continuing Chiropractic care when you were pain-free after the injection was not the 'right' thing to do.  I guess I'm from the old school of reasoning. A well-known Chiropractor said (paraphrased) find it, fix it and leave it alone. 'nuff said?

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QUESTION: See, that is the kicker, I haven't been completely pain free yet.  The injection definately took away quite a bit of it, but there was still a dull nagging ache that would not go away if I held the same position for more than 10 minutes.  Both the chiropractor and the pain management person said that I would need PT to get back to normal and that the injection would allow me to do that.  Were they wrong?  

Answer
Unfortunately that's not a question I can answer. Not everyone gets to the point of pain-free following a serious injury. As I'm sure you know, prescription of medication is outside the scope of chiropractic practice. I can only comment on the situation from afar. If you got worse, it wasn't the thing to do. Talk it over with the docs, plan a course of action, set out short term and long term goals of therapy and 'adjust' them as the situation changes. I wish you well.