19 yr old post-discetomy/laminectomy L5-S1

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yankees718

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Hello everyone,

I am a 19 year old college student athlete. This past January I injured my back playing tennis. I was in severe pain and stopped playing immediately, I knew something was wrong because I had back pain before, but never so bad. I had severe pain in my lower back and sciatica down my left leg. I couldn't straighten my left leg without having a sharp pain run down my leg. I was away at school so it was difficult to see the correct doctors promptly. MRI's eventually showed a severe herniation of the L5-S1 disc. For the rest of the semester I tried doing physical therapy and went to get two cortizone injections. Physical therapy did nothing and the injections didnt do much. They helped with the back pain but the sciatica was still very painful.

I missed the whole tennis season and finished up the semester at school. At the start of vacation I saw a spine surgeon and was able to get a L5-S1 microdiscetomy/laminectomy right away. Right after surgery I could still feel a tremendous amount of pain when I straightened my left leg. My doctor was a little surprised by this but said it could just be from inflammation of the sciatic nerve. I am now almost three weeks post surgery and still have pain when I straighten my leg (a lot less pain than it was before surgery). I know this is good but I am hoping to play tennis next semester and cannot play with this sciatica.

I am starting to get depressed because nothing seems to be working. Does it just need more time or could my doctor have missed some fragments/I re-herniated something? This is the longest I have gone in my life without playing tennis and I cant take it anymore. Did I wait to long to have surgery and now have scar tissue that can't heal?---- this thought frightens me!Is there anyone who has had this type of pain after surgery that can help guide me through this? I don't know who to talk to because everyone is always surprised at my age for having such bad back problems.

Thank you for reading, I know it's alot but I wanted to give an accurate description.
 
hey jackie,
I am glad to hear of your success and high spirits.
Currently I have been going to PT for a few weeks now and my therapist has told me the first step is to get rid of the sciatic pain than we can start working on getting back in shape. He has given me lots of stretches to do at home and has commented that I have very tight leg muscles which could be contributing to my sciatica. For me it seems I have developed a bad habit of walking with my legs and feet open in more of a "V" position. Anyway we have been working on getting my walking back to normal and I am pleased to say I have a slight relief from sciatica! Hopefully it will keep up and I will be back in shape in no time.

Has anyone else ever developed this bad habit of walking?

-yankees718
 
Patience is key!!! I felt so good I over did walking and doing too much and ended up with back spasms worse then the original back pain. If you have a hard time write down when you do things and how you feel and make sure you go gradually, like adding 1-2 min every other day to walking times. Really it will make a difference!!
 
hello everyone,
i am now three months post op and i have just visited my surgeon today. He is pleased with my progress and advised me to resume normal activity. He said I could start playing serious tennis again but be cautious in the beginning. I am thrilled to start getting back in shape. I am still dealing with slight sciatic pain while fully extending my leg but he thinks it will still improve. Thanks for reading and for all your help everyone!
-yankees718
 
You need more time to get better. It takes about 6 weeks and things will begin to turn around. Good luck.
 
You need to give your body time to recover. I know it's hard to stay away from tennis and other physical activity but you are still young and to do yourself more harm now by being too active too soon will be something that could cause you more problems.

Have they provided you with pain medications to use? What has your surgeon said about your progress thus far? Many times nerves get affected by surgery and those that were injured in January take a LONG time to heal. Nerves take a very long time to heal, so you may feel progress in tiny increments. So try to look at each week and see what has improved, what has not, etc and communicate this to your doctor.
 
hey everyone,

Unfortunately I am back to talk about my injury that has started up again. I was doing so well that I was starting to play tennis everyday for my team. Slowly but surely I was getting back to my old self, lost a lot of weight that I gained since surgery, and was able to run and hit better and better everyday. Then during the last week of practice outside (it was cold out) I felt that pain in my back again in the same spot and some of the pain traveled to my hip. I took time off and got an MRI. The results were very complex and the medical staff at my school couldnt really give me a definitive answer so I am waiting for my spine surgeon to get back to me. What I understand from the MRI report was that I previously had a "annular tear" and that this current injury was for the same disc i injured before and it is a slight protrusion in the same direction.
I really dont know what that means and I am hoping I am not just going to end up losing my season again (tennis season starts in january)
I have started another PT program and havent seen much improvement in two weeks.

I just dont know what to do..... I just want the pain to go away and I can go back to normal. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
Hello again,

I am now in my fifth week post op and my leg pain has slightly decreased. I am starting to see a little progress. I am very excited and looking forward to seeing my doctor in a week. Hopefully i can start a PT program and begin working out again. Thanks for the encouragement. And anyone else dealing with a similiar operation my best advice is to hang in there!
 
Hey Thanks for your response,

I was prescribed a 5mg-10mg dosage of oxycotton every 4-6 hours as needed. I was able to stop using them after a week and a half of surgery and haven't used them since. Now I am taking a multivitamin, an aleve as needed and alpha lipoic acid 300mg (because I read that this supplement can help ease nerve pain). The nurse practioner i saw two weeks post surgery said everything looks good so far and the leg pain is just residual pain and it would take time to go away. they told me only to walk as much as i want and to start using an elliptical lightly. The next time I talk to my surgeon will be in three weeks. I guess I'm just gonna have to learn to be patient with it. Thanks for your advice it is greatly appreciated!
 
I had L5-S1 laminectomy/discetomy about 10 years ago, and the thing I wish I'd known was that your back will never be the same after rupturing a disc ... The surgery was the best thing I ever did, as I had many of the same things other posters have mentioned: traction, physio, medication, etc. My disc appeared to be bulging to the left on the CT scan, but my symptoms didn't match that. I could bend all the way to the left, but not the right (should have been the other way), and I could not straighten my left leg beyond 90 degrees when laying on my back. The ortho did the surgery, and they found the disc had ruptured and gotten caught beneath the nerve root so all the things I was doing (traction etc) wouldn't have helped.

What I found after the surgery is the nerve pain and spasms I had in my left leg took well over a year to go away entirely, and even now 10 years later I still get a weird charley-horse on the side of my calf just above my ankle bone (not where you normally get them). Twice, when I went to reach for something and must have moved in a different way, my back spasmed so hard I thought I had ruptured a disc again.

So ... you will always have to be protective of your back. I was told once they operated on that disc, they can't operate on it again if it herniates. (might be different now 10 years later)

I never lift anything over 20 pounRAB, never twist with anything of weight in my hanRAB, and though most of the time I don't think of my back anymore, I am still unconsciously protective of it.

Good luck with your recuperation, and remeraber slow and easy. You can play tennis every day, but need to stretch and rest your back afterwarRAB.
 
Yep, patience is the KEY word when dealing with the spine and especially with the nerves!!!
 
just saw my doctor yesterday. he set me up with physical therapy 1-2 times a week and i was told to come back in 6 weeks. I wasn't happy with my visit though, i was waiting so long to see him and it literally lasted 2 minutes. He barely checked anything and told me i still can't run or workout much. I just want to get back in shape, i havent felt so out of shape in my life. I dont know what to do.
 
I feel your pain, I myself herherniated disc S1L5 of 11mm, did surgery a week ago. Had nurabness is lower leg and foot with what they call foot drop. Surgery was done 6 weeks after injury. Dr. did not want to do injections to possibly waste time. I am a week out of surgery and feel now the sciatica upper leg pain, but should be caused from inflamation. Different kind of pain but take it slow and easy, don't overdue it........ice is what helps me best......short walks are better than long walks because it gets the blood flowing more frequently.......I hope the best for you...if you need to talk let me know, can do so.......
 
Most orthopedic spine surgeons and/or neurosurgeons first try a course of 6-8 weeks of PT when you first treat AND after surgery if symptoms re-appear or continue. Then they re-evaluate. So you are actually right where you can expect to be. Much of this is insurance driven to make sure they try anything non-invasive first and see if PT can improve symptoms. Make a mental note of how PT helps or does not help. Much of the information from PT I gave to my orth spine surgeon is what helped him understand what my problem was (my L3 vertebrae was moving around and even the physical therapist surmised this after treatment and my feedback to him)
 
Hi, Yankee. I'm always upset when someone so young starts having back problems and find it happens a lot to athletes. It's quite possible that you have further herniation of that disc. Once disc material is removed, that disc is susceptible to injury more easily. An annular tear is a tear in the outer layer of the disc which allows leaking.

I think you were wise to stop your activities until your surgeon can evaluate things. I know you are terribly upset at possibly missing the tennis season, but it's really important not to further injure yourself.

Please stay in touch.

Carol
 
Tennis is pretty brutal on the spine in terms of starting/stopping and twisting/bending. It may be a sport that will not match well with your spine. That's very hard to hear, I realize, when you have a passion for a sport. You'll have to see what the problem is this time and if it's the same type of problem with more of the same disc material or another disc it's your body's way of telling you it can't do that activity as much any more.
 
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