2nd Laminectomy causing severe pain! HELP!

[spiral200]

Hello,

I had one laminectomy in 2003 on disk-L5-S1, and then a second one two weeks ago in the same place with a bonus rupture on the disk above it. The term laminectomy being synonymous with diskectomy-has anyone experienced this? They did a "diskectomy" on two disks-L5-S1 and then the one above it two weeks ago, and I am in SEVERE pain. It's worse than it was before my surgery and I'm struggling. It actually brings me to tears. I can't bend over-or sleep. I remeraber my last surgery and it was painful, but I don't remeraber this severe pain lasting so long. Can anyone help me with any advice? How long is recovery from a diskectomy usually? I already have people calling me for physical therapy and I can't tie my OWN shoes!!! I feel like I'm in purgatory here. I have appts. tomorrow with my regular doctor and a nurse practitioner in which I will be discussing this, but I just don't know what to do. I'm so frustrated I could cry. If anyone has advice or worRAB of encouragement I would greatly appreciate them. I thought the surgery would help me-not make me worse!!

I guess I'm worried they're going to tell me it's psychosomatic or something (I've gotten that before). My regular doctor in fact told me to wait 6 months after my MRI and see if it would heal. Instead-I got a double wammy of a bonus ruptured disk. Unfortunately the hospital wasn't having a buy one get one free promotion. :angel:

 

[ihavtwins]

Sorry you are in so much pain. No two surgeries are alike, so try not to compare the two. Are you supposed to be bending at this stage? I would think after a surgery on your back, bending of any kind is going to hurt and you should probably try to avoid it.
Do you have pain meRAB? You should stay on a schedule with these to keep the pain under control.
It takes time to recover from surgery too, ask your doc how long until you should start feeling better.
It is possible you are experiencing nerve pain this time around, its hard to say without doing an MRI to rule out everything.
Im glad you are going back to doc today, hopefully they will have some answers for you!
Jen

 

[ms_west]

You should not be bending, twisting, or lifting for a good six months after surgery. It is really important that you take care of your back and if you are doing these things - all you are doing is pulling muscles and disturbing your surgical area causing inflammation.

You might consider purchasing some slip on shoes. I remeraber being so excited to finally be able to put on my shoes again by myself. I can't saying what a big girl I am. LOL

Recovery can take up to 6 to 12 weeks and sometimes even up to six months to recover from a laminectomy depending on the severity of your case.

Good luck and I pray that things calm down for you soon.

 

[debbie363636]

Hi, I had a discectomy in 1/06. For me the 8 week mark was when I started feeling much better. I remeraber telling the doctor at 6 weeks I really still feel alot of pain. My main mistake was when I felt better I never really babied my back. I did strenous exercises, lifting,etc. and I feel that led to my L5/S1 fusion six weeks ago. Now I know what back and nerve pain really is! Get plenty of rest and TAKE CARE of you back...................Debbie

 

[feelbad]

just a little FYI here for ya.a laminectomy is not synonymous with discectomy.a laminectomy is just that,a removal of "just' the lamina and nothing more.what you had this time around was much more involved than just that removal of the back of the vertebrae.a totally different,more in depth and involved type of surgery.one big thing i have found after having many surgeries on various areas is that once you actually start PT,believe it or not,the pain and mobility usually start to bring DOWN the overall pain.this just occured again after my recent rotator cuff repair surgey done earlier this month.things were really bad and very intense the day after til i really started to actually move that shoulder some and just do simple hand/finger excercises.it really does help.they will start you off very slowly at first and work you up according to your own individual pain and what neeRAB to be rehabbed.of course it will hurt when you first start moving,but honestly,about four or five hours later,things just felt a bit less intense in my shoulder area.i didn't expect that at all.just take things very slow and work up slowly.this isn't a no pain no gain type situation.go at your own comfort level and you should be okay.but the sooner you start moving things the much better you will be inthe long run,trust me.otherwise things tend to start tightening up and could end up kind of freezing up from lack of movement,it just really does need to be done as soon as the doc says its okay.you will be preventing alot ofother possible problems by doing as much as you can now as early as you can.it just really helps alot in many ways,including reducing the pain intensity.just try and do as much as you can that they tell you you need to do.good luck.please let us know how things are going.marcia