Update to husband's 3 level fusion

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sskab5

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My husband had his 3 level fusion l3-l4, l4-l5, l5-s1, done last wednesday the 23rd. The surgery per his Dr was a great success. All went well and Steve was an excellent patient. Very little pain and he was walking good. He had 2 pervious surgeries to repair a ruptured disk both times at l3-l4. He did so well with this surgery his Dr. decided he did not need to go to a rehab center so he came home yesterday. Since coming home he started having unbearable pain in his left hip. He never had any pain in his left side before surgery. He can barely walk with his walker with out being in horrible pain. Other than the hip pain he would feel great. Has anyone else experienced this right after having fusion surgery. I am calling his dr. tomorrow to let him know. The surgeon did say that there would be some nerve pain due to the nerves being moved around during the surgery. We tried the ice pack but that only seemed to make it worse. We did apply blue ice to the area which seemed to help for a moment or two. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
 
That is great news that everything went well during the surgery. Make sure that hubby takes it very slow and does not do anything but rest, rest, rest and rest at this point.

Did they take bone from the hip for his fusion? If so that could be cause of his increased pain.

You might try giving heat a try if ice does not work. I would not use it on the incision but on the hip will be fine.

Make sure that he sets the alarm to take his medicine around the clock 24/7 so that the pain does not get out of control for the first couple of weeks.

Hope this helps and I would definitely call the doctor in the morning.
 
Thank you for your kind worRAB of encouragement. He didn't have any bone grafted from his hip but the Dr did say to expect nerve pain while the nerves healed. We will give the heat a try this morning and give the Dr. a call later. Steve is up about every 2 hours using the restroom. He seems to have a lot of fluid built up and his legs are swollen. I am keeping a journal of all his meRAB and when he takes them. So we are staying on top of that.
Thanks again and I will keep posting on his progress. This sight has been wonderful place of information and I am so glad that I found it.
 
I had surgery 3 weeks ago and came home 8 pounRAB heavier. I'm sure it was from all the fluiRAB they pump into you with the IV line, etc. Maybe that is the reason for your husband's fluid build-up in his legs. What meRAB did the doc put your husband on when he was discharged from the hospital?
 
I had swollen legs and feet for quite a while. Is he still wearing the anti-erabolism stockings from the hospital? They do help!

It's normal to have an increase in pain anywhere from a few days to a few weeks after fusion surgery. This is partly because they use nurabing agents during the surgery. It takes a while for them to wear off, so he might have been handling the pain pretty well in the hospital, but once he got home and the nurabing agents started wearing off, his pain levels went up.

Encourage him to stay up and walk for as long as he can whenever he gets up to use the bathroom. Even if he only walks back and forth in the bedroom for 10 minutes, that's great! He can increase it by a few mintues a day as he's able. The walking is important, as it gets blood circulating in the spine, which is essential to bone growth. Then back to bed until next bathroom time. I did make sure my bed got made everyday, though with the comforter folded down so I could still slide to turn on the satin-type sheet. It made me feel less like I was "in" bed, more in a recovery mode than a sick mode. That was just a psychological thing for me, but it was important. It gave me a little bit of normalcy and switched me from night routine to day routine.

I wish him (and you!) the best,
Emily
 
Emily ~

At 3 weeks out from fusion, I'm starting to develop some pain where I never had it before -- in the front of my thigh. And I feel like I'm not swinging my leg through when walking in my "normal" way. It is really more painful than the sciatic pain I had prior to surgery.

At 3 weeks should I still be spending most of my time in bed?

Any comments would be appreciated....:)
 
Well, everyone's different, but I was still mostly in bed at three weeks.

I had new pains come and go, and it seemed like at least some of them were because I was using my muscles differently due to pain. Definitely mention it to your doctor when you see him, but don't get too upset about it. It's easy to think that these new pains will be there forever and we've made a terrible mistake by having the surgery, but most often it's just a temporary thing and will work its way out as you slowly become more active. If it IS something significant, my way of thinking is I can always worry about it later. For now, just rest and try to give your body the best shot at healing and fusing well.

Maybe write down where your pains are, the time and date, scale of 1 to 10, etc., and look back in a week or two to compare and see how things have changed.

It's a long recovery, but you'll slowly see progress. Hang in there!

Emily :wave:
 
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