I am with MantaRay. I will never want to have an epidural again. I absolutely screamed through mine, but the anethesist was a bit of a you know what so that probably didn't help. Unfortunately though, I still get pain in my back from it, and I have a scar um, as for when I felt normal.. I had it at about 11pm.. topped up again later on and I had dd at 8 in the morning. Then at about 5-6 pm I felt fully normal. But not sure whether that was because i'd had morphene in my drip plus endone tablets every few hours.