EREGI_REPLACE - HELP!

I have a form, with an HTML <option> tag. The tag has info like: <select name=Category> <option>category1\animals <option>category2\people <option>category3\other </select> when i submit the form, i should have that choice in the variable $Category and i do, it works great, i then insert that into a mysql database, and from another webpage, i select that record and view the info. the problem is when i view it, it looks like: Category: category2people I lost the back slash. so i thought before i pout it in the database, i should add an extra slash there... soooo $Category = eregi_replace("\", "\\", "$Category"); thats what i want to do, but it gives me errors because oif the slashes. so i try: $Category = eregi_replace("\\", "\\\\", "$Category"); which gives me: Warning: REG_EESCAPE What is going on? Can anyone help? Is there a better way to do this? Thanks Chris