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Hi, I have had 3 back surgeries in under 2 years. My recent one was a laminectomy on l5-s1 in February 2019. I am having more pain now than before surgery. Nerve pain, tingling, burning and numbness from my back down to my foot. I was just looking to see if anyone has any suggestions or similar experiences. I am also having numbness and tingling in my hand which I find odd. I might want to add that I still have a collapsed disc l5-s1 that was not fixed during surgery. Thanks for any help!

@jdodd81 welcome to our caring community We aren,t Dr,s or medical but offer our experience and what we found to help I understand pain,burning pain numbness and all I just had a bout of sciatica nerve problem It went from buttocks down leg to foot settled behind my knee couldnt walk alot till calf to toes painful Dr gave me leg stretching 3x a day knees to chest roll side to side, leg up pull to chest stretching leg I believe in chiropractor so went to this Dr If stretches dont help see your Dr.Good luck

Thank you! I am going to physical therapy, on pain meds and gabapentin for nerve pain but nothing seems to be working. I have a dr appointment tomorrow so hopefully I will get some answers.

@jdodd81 Good hope you get some final answers to help I know how misearble you are good luck will you post and let us know how your doing

Yes ma’am I sure will!

Good Morning!

I went to the neurologist and neurosurgeon this week. The purpose of this visit was to review tests to see if they could determine why I have neuropathy.
Long story short, my neurosurgeon can do surgery to help me be able to walk for longer periods of time.
There is a slight chance that if I were to have the surgery, the pain may reoccur.
For the first time in over a decade, I am pain free (except for the usual aches and pains of getting older)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My husband and I discussed this (as a possibility before the appointment) and decided that I am NOT willing to take the chance.
Being pain free is more important to me than being able to walk longer distances!
However, the neurosurgeon thinks there is more going on in my spine causing all this.
He has me going for another test and in 2 weeks we will go over ALL the reesults of ALL the tests and the neurologist and neurosurgeon will consult.
To be continued......

Happy days!
Ronnie (GRANDMAr)

@jdodd81 I'm a spine surgery patient for a cervical problem and I have thoracic outlet syndrome. I'm curious, what was the reason to do surgery and not address a collapsed disc in the operated area? What direction did the disc herniate and could it have gotten worse since your procedure? The burning pain is a concern, and your surgery was just last month, right? Have you asked your surgeon about this?

The numbness and tingling in your hand could be something like TOS and stress and the inflammation in your body from just having had surgery will increase the symptoms there. I'm guessing that you are not very active right now and walking might be difficult or painful, and that you may not be trying to maintain good posture in all you do. With TOS, a forward head posture, slouching shoulders or bracing against pain can aggravate it, and it's a postural nerve entrapment between the collar bone and rib cage of nerves and the blood supply to your arm. It may have more symptoms at night because of your arm position while sleeping. If you had an injury like a whiplash as a cause of spine problems, you may have TOS and it is more common in spine injury patients.

When you are healed enough for physical therapy, you might want to consider Myofascial release therapy for surgical scar tissue in the fascia. Here is a lot of information about MFR, and a link to find a therapist in this discussion That I created about MFR. This might be something else to ask your surgeon about.
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/myofascial-release-therapy-mfr-for-treating-compression-and-pain/

Here is some information about TOS https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/thoracic-outlet-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20353988

@jenniferhunter I had 2 previous microdiscectomies on the left side due to a herniated disc. 3 weeks after I returned to work from the second surgery I fell and messed up the right side. So everything that is being done now is on workman’s comp. They can’t prove that the fall collapsed the disc so workers Comp would not approve for them to fix it. I went and saw my surgeon today and he said there is a large amount of narrowing on the left side from the 2 prior surgeries and a small amount on the right side from my recent surgery. He said that the right side is having to compensate for the left side. He has stopped physical therapy and has ordered a cat scan and a mri. He wants to get a good look at the nerve, see if anything else has collapsed, and make sure I don’t have any small fractures in the vertebrae that he can’t see on the X-ray. He definitely thinks something is going on and just can’t figure out what.

@jdodd81 I hope they get this figured out for you. If you need another surgical opinion, you should get that from a doctor that you chose. This sounds like a complicated problem and you might need to consult an attorney who does work comp cases. It's hard to be caught in the middle not knowing if work comp will allow you to have the best procedure to solve the problem instead of the economy version, and your medical insuranace won't cover it because of the work accident.. I think a microdiscketomy just removes the part of the disc that extrudes out, but it can happen again. As the disc collapses more, the bones get closer together closing the foramen which are the spaces between vertebral bodies where the nerves exit the spine. That happened in my neck and the disc lost about half it's height, and if I side bent my neck, it hit the nerves of the nerve roots. You can also have bone spurs growing in those spaces too. Is the narrowing scar tissue formation that your doctor mentioned or bone growth? It's also possible to have displacement or slipping of one vertebrae over he other if this has become unstable. Sometimes they need to compare a standing MRI with one when you are reclined because it may show a change of position of the spine. Ask for copies of your imaging when you have it done in case you need it to consult another surgeon for a second opinion.

@jenniferhunter I wish I was as knowledgeable as you! That’s excellent information. Thank you! He didn’t mention what form of narrowing it is. I do know that l5-s1 are completely collapsed, no space in between at all. I had an mri in August after my 2nd surgery and the report stated nothing about the disc, or what’s left of it being collapsed. But the surgeon that work Comp is making me see is saying it was and just wasn’t reported. So they had the August mri to kinda compare the October one to after I fell. I’m so confused on everything, I’m tired of being in this pain and just want them to help me.