It is claimed that 10 million Epidural Spinal Injections (ESI) are given every year and 5% of the pts who get these ESI’s end up with Adhesive Arachnoiditis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachnoiditis which is a very painful and irreversible condition. Generally caused by the practitioner inserting the needle a “bit to far” and end up injecting fluids into the spinal fluid.
The only medication(s) that can be safely injected into that the spinal fluids must be not only STERILE, but must also be PRESERVATIVE FREE and a SOLUTION – NOT A SUSPENSION.
The class of medications used in ESI’s – Cortisteroids – and particularly Methylprednisolone is ONLY STERILE, contains PRESERVATIVES and is a SUSPENSION.
That same class of medication is discouraged by both the FDA and the company that discovered/produces it – Pfizer – to be used in ESI’s.
These ESI’s at $1000 to $3000 a pop means that Medicare/Medicaid/Insurance is putting out 10’s of billions of dollars EVERY YEAR. Not to mention the untold number of pts that are added to the list of pts suffering with Adhesive Arachnoiditis and how many are not getting proper pain management for a disease caused by a careless healthcare professional ?
Pain clinics that “force” pts to get routine ESI’s with the promise of relief of pain for weeks or months and in reality the pt may only get relief for days or weeks, or requiring pts to get ESI’s at certain intervals because the “insurance will pay again”.. even though the relief of pain has left weeks/months ago.
Often pts are told that they must get ESI’s and/or other procedures that do not provide the promised relief in order for the prescriber to provide the pt with oral pain meds.
Congress is always talking about all the fraudulent billings.. according to this article https://khn.org/news/fraud-and-billing-mistakes-cost-medicare-and-taxpayers-tens-of-billions-last-year/
it was 60 billion in 2016 alone JUST FOR MEDICARE. Billing for medically unnecessary procedures is considered FRAUD.
Is it time for pts of these “needle jockey” pain clinics to start taking notes because some/many of you are going to get dismissed from the practice at some time in the future, often for nebulous or fabricated reasons. This is the time to BLOW THE WHISTLE… don’t call and file a complaint with Medicare, contact your Federal Senators or Representatives.
Successful whistler blower cases the whistle blower gets a percentage of what is recouped. If you have already been tossed out of the practice… why not try to get some revenge ?
Filed under: General Problems
ESI should be banned!!!
They are NOT approved by FDA, and patients are not told that, or the risks.
The physical and financial cost of ESI complication is staggering.
I’m still getting bills, several thousand in debt from ruling out deadly complication from a procedure that caused everlasting pain, 4 days in hospital, 4 scans (MRIs are expensive) just to rule out meningitis, osteomyelitis (bone infection) and brain abscess.
These injections were incredibly profitable. It was necessary for the hospitals doing this to deny all reports of increased pain, and adverse events. All they had to do was claim that a patient with an adverse outcome, could be addicted or mentally ill. These clinics also made arrangements with other nearby clinics to help spread the deniability. They are still doing this injections in many places, they know there won’t be any reaction by regulators.
These injections were presented as an alternative to opioids, and patients for forced to continue to get the injections in order to prove they were in pain. State Medical Boards ignored the complaints, as these injection got even more common and were done on an assembly line. The FDA very likely buried the adverse incident reports on these too.
We are all being Gas Lighted, data was selectively not collected on any of these adverse events. The industries that were profiting decided the data and facts were inconvenient. They came up with a clever false narrative to deny it all.
I declined them at first mention having knowledge of arachnoiditis, knowing the results for others were not consistent and it just sounding like a bad idea. I said “I don’t want any needles near my spine”.
He immediately became defensive, and he is on the States Medical Board as its pain management specialist, and asked me after a good surgeon said there were no surgical options left, “Is that good enough for you?” He really wanted that sale.
Eventually he didn’t respond to over a years worth of complaints that the fentanyl patches were falling off after one or two days, would not simply go back to 3x40mg oxycodone, which worked a miracle for or me, and when I tested positive for suboxone (I took a fraction of one piece to deal with the undertreatment one day) I broke my “contract” and was summarily cut off and no doctor will even discuss pain medicine with me anymore except to ask where I got the suboxone.
I didn’t make him sign a contract that he would extort me at the expense of my health. Now I have advanced heart failure from atrophy because I lost all mobility. Mobility is the First Pillar of Health.
If you are well documented and have the understanding that the wheels of justice work slow and it’s more than a full time, do it. I speak from experience and my husband and I are thankful for the village that stood behind us. Thank you Steve!!!