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Nerve pain after L4/5 decompression/fusion
Spine Health | Last Active: Jul 20 9:04pm | Replies (13)Comment receiving replies
Thank you for your reply but I’ve done all that you suggested. The part of my story that doesn’t add up for me is that I was totally pain free for the first 10 days post op and my current pain is in my leg that was normal prior to surgery and it’s actually more painful than the other leg was prior to surgery. I understand all of the nerves were irritated during the surgery but why did it take 10 days to start the flare up?
Replies to "Thank you for your reply but I’ve done all that you suggested. The part of my..."
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@kwolverton62 Surgery creates a LOT of inflammation which is necessary for healing, and that is going to affect the rest of the body, so it is possible that the inflammation might aggravate something that had been asymptomatic. It doesn't necessarily mean that something else is wrong. For example, I have thoracic outlet syndrome (compression of nerves and vessels in neck/shoulder) and I went through cervical spine surgery and those issues are very close to each other in my neck and shoulder. The pain from my TOS did increase a lot and it made me crazy, and at that time I was not authorized for PT to the area because the spine was not fused, and surgery was done without hardware. I was dependent on the neck brace and good behavior to maintain the support for what was done in surgery. You may want to ask your surgeon about this. You may have pain generated from a level different from what was operated on, and if the other lumbar levels can move and rotate, there may be a muscle spasm affecting it that could cause pain.
Usually inflammation starts to kick in at day 2-3 after surgery, and builds from there. I heard that from a surgeon.