what is this? never heard of it, please educate me on this.

Arachnoiditis is a chronic debilitating pain condition caused by the inflammation of the arachnoid layer of the sac that surrounds your brain and spinal cord. Repeated injuries to the spine including surgery, stenosi and degenerative disc disease and multiple tests and procedures including facet joint injections, spinal taps, and other procedures that set off inflammation of the arachnoid layer can lead to this condition.

There are a number of websites out there devoted to this illness. Please go to www.arachnoiditis.com and select the Cause and Treatment button to read about it further. It addresses some interesting causes of arachnoiditis and is associated with"failed back syndrome." Do a google search on arachnoiditis and read some of the information at the sites to which you are directed.

Let me know what you think!

thanks, i will check it out, sounds interesting.

Dear jasp435 well I think Ive found out alot of what my proublems is Im going to talk to my Pain Dr and find out why thay never told me about this every thing thay talked about looks like me many failed surgerys many mylagrams 8 surgerys and Im not any better then I was befor except the pain is diffrent Im going to call my pain Dr and talk to him about this today alot of answers have been answered for me alone and Im shur alot of people out there have this and dont even know it man what a eye opener. maybe now thay can give me some answers I also have alot of epeis about every month so my spinn get invated alot thanks for that reading Joyce 30512

The radiologists report from a mylogram I had back in 2008 suggested that I may have arachnoiditis. To be honest arachnoiditist scares me more than anything. It can be a devastating illness. From what I have read it is very difficult to get a doctor to diagnose a patient with it. I guess because it's difficult to diagnose a patient's problems as being 100% caused by arachnoiditis since the patient usually has so many other back issues that can cause the pain.

I wish you good luck and sincerely hope you really don't have it!

The real scary thing for me is that if I get additional back surgeries like the neurosurgeon wants to do, and I do have arachnoiditis, It could set it off in a big way and I could end up in a wheel chair.

As it is, I sometimes have trouble walking as my legs will buckle and are weak. They want to give out so I have to support myself with the shopping cart and sort of drag my legs along when I go shopping.

I also have trouble with vision. I start to see double and have to magnify everything to read, especially on the computer, but also textbooks. I am a teacher (or was a teacher until I didn't have the strength to work a whole day). In the afternoons when I am tired, I would have trouble reading the textbook. I've seen an ophthamologist and he says there is nothing wrong with my eyes, per se, so I think it is the nerves to the eyes that are the problem.

I also have this irritating twitching of muscles, burning legs, and sweating all of a sudden or after I eat. I will go to bed, lie there five minutes and suddenly start sweating and have to throw the covers off until it stops. Some nights I will have restleg leg syndrome. The last time, I took my TENS unit and hooked it up to my legs and I'll be damned if it didn't work! I fell asleep

i've had an MRI of the brain as well after a visit to a neurologist. They did lumbar punctures. The first time the protein level was way high. The doc said you have some sort of chronic inflammation somewhere but we don't know what it is. They did a second puncture a couple months later with the same results.

I had enough neurological deficits that they gave me a probably MS diagnosis, but I only had one lesion on the brain and another spot of ischemia. To diagnose MS, the guidelines are that you have to have at least two lesions. There were other tests that were negative so the docs took a wait and see attitude, although I did have IV methylprendisolone treats for two days. They did that twice, about a month apart, and it seemed to help my vision.

I also have had trouble eating and have lost 25 pounds because I have nausea and have a lot of pain if I eat too much. I had to go to a liquid diet and/or rice for a while in order to get food to go through. I eat very small amounts and prefer something easy to digest in order not to be miserable. I have had every gastro test including an ERCP for pancreatitis because my enzymes were a little high, but the gastro doc didn't think the pain was coming from the pancreas.

All these things could be caused by arachnoiditis so my next visit is back to a neurologist to have him look at the MRI the neurosurgeon had done and see what he says. Even though it's a horrible diagnosis, at least I'd know what I've been dealing with all these years.

Did I mention that I have reactive hypoglycemia and crashed my car because I fell asleep? Drank a can of soda on an empty stomach around 11 am and that was all it took. Lucky no one on the road because I crossed the line for quite a while before I went back to my side of the road and hit a guard rail.

Sorry for the long post, but I needed to get some of this off my chest. No one understands, including myself and doctors, why I have these strange problems. It would be a relief to find out why, even if it is arachnoiditis, at least I'd know what I'm dealing with.
Thanks, everyone, for your support on this site. It has been a lifesaver to me. God bless you all.