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nerve pain after spinal surgery

12 years ago

four weeks ago i had some pretty major surgery. decompression at L4-L6 and diskectomy at T11/12. prior to the surgery, i had numbness and weakness in my legs. MRI showed that the disk was so badly herniated, it had pushed my spinal cord over and put a "kink" in it. the surgeon was able to fix everything with no fusions.

i have noticed over the past 10 days or so that i am experiencing a LOT of discomfort in my lower legs and in my feet. it feels like a million little pin pricks. the numbness and weakness are pretty much gone.

i talked to my ortho surgeon's nurse yesterday and she told me my nerves are "firing" and that it's a normal part of recovery from this sort of surgery.

i'm wondering if anybody else has ever had this experience and if so, how long did this nerve pain last? i have an appointment for another check-up on the 31st and of course, will discuss this with my surgeon. i am happy to say, the pain i had prior to surgery is pretty much gone. i am only dealing with post-surgical pain now, incision pain, etc., but for the most part, i feel SOOOOO much better!!!!!

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Comments (2)

olivia23( NC zone 7 )
12 years ago
I had pretty much the same problem. Disk pressing on a nerve & I had terrible leg and foot pain. After surgery it took awhile for back/leg pain to go away, but my foot pain didn't.

I had physical therapy and told them several times that the top of my foot was so sensitive that it hurt just having my bed sheets touch it at night. Some nights the pain was bad that I imagined myself taking a hammer to my foot. They just kept saying my foot was over sensitive and had my doing stuff like rubbing cotton balls over the top of my foot and other things to desensitize it, but it didn't work. Now about 3 years later I'm still not pain free but at least it's not an everyday thing. I just wonder if it's permanent nerve damage because somedays the top if my foot will start tingling pretty bad and of course later that night difficult sleep because of pain. Sorry no help here, but hope yours gets better soon.
Ninapearl
Original Author
12 years ago
thanks for your response, olivia. i haven't had the sort of sensitivity you speak of, just a general pain. much of the pain in my right foot was there prior to surgery. i have a terrible hammer toe and although i had bunion surgery 20+ years ago, i think all of that needs to be re-done.

the "prickling" in my lower legs seems to have lessened over the past few days. i do still have significant lower back pain and the incision sites are extremely tender but i know that will take another few weeks to lessen.

glad to know you don't have to deal with this every day. pain sure is, well, a pain! over my lifetime, i have been tossed around by big horses, stepped on, slammed up against barn walls, etc. i wouldn't know how to act if i wasn't in pain somewhere but this is getting old!
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