Posterior Lumbar Fusion - Post op questions

[DracosHuman]

Hi everyone. This is my first time posting to the message board but I have read many posts over the last month. I would like to thank everyone for posting here and helping others.

I have Grade II Spondylolisthesis with severe stenosis and herniated disc (and all the pain and such that goes with it). I have been unable to sleep in bed for more than 6 months. The only sleep I could get was in a recliner chair which eventually started to have effects on edema in my legs.

On August 5 I had the posterior lurabar fusion on L4 - S1 and Laminectomy. Prior to surgery I had nurabness and pain from the sciatic in the right leg. Post op, I have noticed a marked improvement in the right leg and I can lay down now! (I haven't been in my recliner yet, afraid I won't be able to get out of it at this time.) However, at times, usually after waking up, I have had some sciatic pain in my left leg (which isn't there when I am laying down, start feeling it when I sit up and then it increases and then eventually decreases, takes about 45 minutes to an hour). First time was after laying on my right side with my adjustable bed inclined some. The other times was just within the last 24 hours and after laying on my back. I do adjust the bed to have my feet quite a bit higher to help corabat the edema in my legs, which seems to be getting better.

My question is, is this new sciatic pain possibly due to inflammation from the surgery? Post op pain is not too bad, save for the first 3 to 4 days post op, which I care to forget. Most of my discomfort is from a feeling like someone is gripping hold of my spine and won't let go, and I feel the space their hanRAB are taking up inside. This, is uncomfortable, yet not really painful. Annoying mostly.

Thank you all for reading. :angel:

 

[jcrowder]

I just read your post and it sounRAB so similar to me I thought I would share this with you. I had S1-L5 fusions done June 30 of this year. I was home for about 3 weeks and had to go to the emergency room because the pain in my right leg was intolerable. They admitted me and kept me for 3 days on IV dilaudid (not sure about the spelling). My doc explained to me that nerves are the slowest healing part of our bodies. I have spondylolisthesis (not sure about that spelling either) and the disc between L4 and L5 was completely gone so my sciatic nerve was being crushed. My surgery created a space to relieve pressure on the nerve and the pain from the nerve "repairing" itself is what sent me back to the hospital. They sent me home on the pill form of dilaudid. I'm doing really well now however everyday, there is a different feeling somewhere in my right leg. Like for a few days my toes feel like they are scalded and then that goes away. Then it will come back again for a few days. One day i may have hip pain, one day i may have knee pain. I just never know what to expect. What i can say, is that these weirdo healing pains i have are still easier to deal with than the sciatica i had prior to the surgery. Hope this helps!

 

[bigdogdad]

Dear DracosHuman,

I have experienced 4 spinal surgeries including one Anterior Multi level Fusion and 3 posterior procedures including laminectomies, fusions, etc. One of my surgeons once said "If you saw the Trauma we put your body through during some of these procedures, you would be very surprised your pain from the surgery isn't worse."

I have experienced on several occasions new pains which I had not had before the procedures. Specifically, I had right side Sciatic pains post surgery which I had never experienced previously. The swelling of the body in the areas of the surgery were responsible for each of these occurances. A few days post surgery and the "new pains" were gone as were the "old pains".

I will never forget waking in the recovery room the first time I experienced back surgery and immediately feeling the relief from the horrible sciatic pain I had endured for years prior to the procedure. Just imagine my grief when the next day, the "old pain" returned along with sciatic pain on the other side, which I had never before endured. Fortunately, My surgeon had warned me this was likely and he assured me the "new pain" wouldn't last, and he was correct.

It's hard to describe the depression you feel having endured a major surgery only to think the problem is not only still present, but now you have new pains which you previously had not experienced. Once the pains subsided, things went much better.

I personally believe that it is critical that you push yourself to do as much as you can as soon as reasonable. While it is easy to rest and have others do things for us while we are recovering, the reality is that you must be as active as possible post surgery to achieve as thorough a recovery as possible. The less you do post surgery, the worse your problems will become. I have no doubt. This is why many procdures start Physical Therapy even while you were one day post surgery.

The night I had my first Multi Level Anterior Fusion, within 6 hours of being back in my hospital room, the nurses had me up walking in the halls. The next day, I was clirabing one set of stairs with careful supervision. When you are in pain, the last thing you want to do is to push yourself and risk the pain worsening. However, within the limits imposed by the doctors, be as active as possible. You will feel better and experience a more thorough recovery.

Hey, after 10 total operations, I should know........Best Wishes for a complete and successful recovery........

 

[DracosHuman]

Dear Jcrowder,

Sorry to hear you went through a bad time during your recovery but I am glad to hear that things are getting better for you now

I am relieved by the fact that these new pains I have been getting don't stay for too long and seem to "cycle" in some respect (like yours), making me think that it is most likely due to the inflammation and healing from the surgery.

Dear Bigdogdad,

Wow, you have been through a lot. This is my first surgery and although I did a lot of research and sought out the opinion of several doctors before deciding to have the surgery, I still feel like I went into blindly. The first doctor, a neurosurgeon, suggested surgery back in 2002 and I wasn't ready for it at that time. Perhaps I shouldn't have held off as long as I had. I do however feel that I did right by going with the surgeon that I did, a orthopedic spine surgeon.

I understand what your saying about the depression that comes from having new pains and thinking things are worse than they had been before hand. I am going through some of that now.

Thank you for responding!!

Kelly

 

[bigdogdad]

Kelly,

Best wishes for a complete recovery. Did I understand your posting to say that you went from 2002 until now with the back pain before surgery? The reason I ask is because I have experienced the added problem of having the same nerve path communicating pain for such an extended period of time, that my body seemed to accept the pain signal as "normal", even after the structural problem within my spine causing the pain had been physically repaired through surgery.

Sometimes a nerve block can interupt the pain signal enough to end the pain communication signal. In my case, I ended up having a Spinal Neurostimulator implanted. Never has extended research and thoroughly understanding the available products weaknesses and strengths been more important. I ended up with the Boston Scientific stimulator which has been very effective and helpful in addressing the remnant pain after 4 various spinal operations.

Once I got my lower back pain problems under control (only took 20 years, $540,000 in medical claims paid and 4 operations) I injured my right shoulder. Now, I have had two shoulder operations in the past 14 months and I just underwent another Neurostimulator trial for my shoulder. I am putting off having that Stimulator implanted because the surgeon is requiring me to wear a neck brace for 8 weeks prohibiting any head turning or vertical movements. That's impossible during motorcycle season and I am not going to miss my planned trip to Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and the Dakotas, which I take each late summer / early fall.

One thing which I have noticed to be an absolute truth is that as we age, it takes much longer to recover from each surgery and the pain seems to be much more difficult to manage. Getting older is certainly not for wimps!

Kelly, I sincerely hope you achieve a full recovery and return to a happy, pain free (or if unable to eliminate the pain, at least manage it very effecively) productive life. As I have always said, there are only one or two people upon whom I would wish the extreme pain and suffering that we have experienced.......

Stay positive and keep your chin up. The worst is behind you. :wave:

 

[DracosHuman]

Dear Bigdogdad,

Thank you for your best wishes. Yes, I went from 2002 till now with the back pain before going for the surgery. At first it wasn't as intense. I was diagnosed with Spondylolisthesis, Grade I in 2002. Surgery was recommended at that time by the Neurosurgeon and I sought out a second opinion and his recommendation was the same. I didn't want to have surgery and held off for a long time. When I couldn't lay down anymore, I knew that it was getting to be the time when something had to be done.

During that time I had gone for physical therapy and received the shots for the nerve block through pain management.

Time will tell how effective this surgery was. I do see improvement in the leg that was affected. My ortho told me that I should see marked improvement in the nerve pain early on, but that the back pain would take some time. I know my muscles need to heal and I know that my body is doing what it neeRAB to do to heal. I hope for the best, of course!

Luckily, since my first posting, the sciatic pain in the left leg has not yet returned. I hope it stays this way and that it was a result of bad positioning while sleeping and/or inflammation. The thought of bringing on an additional problem while fixing another was scary.

Your trip sounRAB like lots of fun! I hope you have a great time traveling, it sounRAB wonderful!!

My best to you as well.

 

[Mandymia]

Hello I was astounded by your story. Unfortunately we are all going to suffer from either cervical, thoracic or lurabar pain at some stage in our lives. My mother had several operations on her spine. She fell from the ladder 2 meters high and the ladder fell on top of her damaging most of her disks. Her sciatic pain, pins and needles, burning and nurabness was so extreme that doctors thought they will try 3 shots of quarterzone injections in her spine. The relief was only for less than 1 day. The pain flared up again. She had done nerve conduction studies and the results of that were that the there was severe compression of the L2-L5 region. The doctors performed a procedure called L2-L5 lurabar laminactomy to release the compression but unfortunately due to scar tissue damage from the operation her symptoms of sciatica continued to annoy her life.

It was unfortunate that the doctors in Australia did not recorgnise that the there were far more serious complications in my mother's spine. When she fell she also fractured T12-L1 which was called "double crush syndrome". It was crushed to such an extreme which was why a L2-L5 decompression surgery without fusion was going to make much difference.

I searched for a Spinal surgeon to look into my mother's case and all they could do was give her Lyrica (gabapentin) and increase the dose to 600mg per day which again didn't do anything. It got to the point when I could not sleep for hours in the night listening to her cry and crouch in bed from the sciatic symptoms. The burning and the pins and needles gave a very bad feeling in her legs and the more time we were waiting for answers and help the worst it got. Being a carer and going through all of the spinal trauma's my mother suffered in life since 2004 was quite distressing. I thought I had to do something about it and fast. I "googled" a surgeon in the United States and immediately sent him an email. He offered to take mum as a patient. After changing several flights we finally got there after 24 hours from Australia. There was so much pain during the flight but the flight attendant made mum as comfortable as possible changing peoples seating positions to make mum as comfortable as possible during the long journey.

In the United States surgeons couldn't believe the extent of complications they come accross from mums spine. Screws, roRAB, metal plates, the works were inserted. After a 5 hour procedure to fuse T12-L1 mums symptoms of sciatica subsided. They couldn't begin to understand why this type of surgery was delayed but they were glad that mum's surgery in the U.S had a positive outcome. Without this type of surgery mum would have ended up in a wheelchair paralysed from the severe nerve compression. We were filmed with a news crew to tell the story of how mum and I came about to visit the surgeon in the U.S and treat her there.

Several months later her symptoms of sciatica flared up again causing her grief and heartache once again. Her spinal problems didn't end there. She also had a spinal cord stimulator implanted at the levels L1-SI but it didn't give mum any pain relief regardless of how many times she manipulated the device for minimal comfort. After chasing spinal surgeons to 4 different major cities within Australia, one doctor took on my mothers case and looked into her severe and complicating problems. L2-L5-S1 was severely out of position. Grade 2 Sponylithesis with a curveture spine. She was with a walker and currently is but after this operation her symptoms of sciatica was relieved. However after suffering a fair bit of scar tissue damage and foot drop as the result of the surgery she still feels burning and nurabness in her arms and legs although not as severe now as before. The surgeon says the best treatment for this to have hydrotherapy treatment which she is doing now. It is a great relief to be doing physical exercises in 34 degree heated pool.

Well this is my mother's story and as a daughter and carer it was hard to give up and tolerate her pain but am glad the final operation has released her severe pain. She is still hunching over but in time with a lot of physio and hydrotherapy her back will straighten and the stiffness in her legs and nurabness in her arms will slowly subside. Our aim is to get her off the walker and maintain balance assuring her that her walker will no longer be in use, at least not until she is 80+.

Thank you for reading my mothers story. Please feel free to comment.