Increasingly, pregnant women are asking about the risks of arachnoiditis after an epidural. After this report, public confidence in spinal anaesthesia disappeared for two decades. In these days of increasing accountability and public interest in medical malpractice, issues such as these are difficult to ignore.ДЄlthough the incidence of irreversible neurological complications after epidural anaesthesia is very low, 28 the Woolley and Roe case 27 in 1954 serves to illustrate the catastrophic effect neural damage caused by central nerve block can have. This article was supported by The Arachnoiditis Trust whose patron had written an article easily accessible on the internet ( in which she claimed that epidural anaesthesia is implicated in the aetiology of arachnoiditis. A week later, they ran two articles: one entitled вЂTime to acknowledge this dangerвЂ™ implied a reluctance of the medical profession to acknowledge the iatrogenic causes of arachnoiditis and the other including an alleged quote, about epidurals in labour, from a former director of women and childrenвЂ™s health at WHO: вЂThey are being told they are safe. They claimed that epidurals for labour have left thousands of women disabled or paralysed and that this вЂfactвЂ™ was one of the NHSвЂ™s most closely guarded secrets. 69 On April 15, 2001, the Sunday Express newspaper ran a double page article entitled вЂBirth Jabs Cripple WomenвЂ™, outlining what they described as вЂthe scandal of epidurals that have wrecked livesвЂ™. Less than 1000 cases have been reported in the last 50 yr.

Chronic adhesive arachnoiditis (CAA) is an extremely rare but debilitating condition, that has recently received increased media attention.

Radiculopathy after blood patch