1. < Spine Health

How long can recovery continue after spinal surgery?

Posted by carmine1237 @carmine1237, Oct 14 1:28pm

14 months ago, I had surgery from T6 to T 11 (yeah) to remove a fistula. It was an experimental surgery after four angiograms failed.

I am still going to physical therapy, and I notice increased strength and flexibility in my legs. But it is at an incredibly slow pace. I still can only stand in parallel bars for two minutes at a time, and take at most three or four steps holding onto the bars.

Has anyone had spinal surgery and continued improvement after a year? And how long after one year?

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carmine1237 | @carmine1237 | Oct 17 10:22am

Thank you, I will look into this. Are you a neurologist? Your response sounds professional.

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Jennifer, Volunteer Mentor | @jenniferhunter | Oct 17 2:01pm

@carmine1237 Welcome to Connect! I see you are getting helpful suggestions from members. That is valuable information, yet every patient is unique, and your recovery has a lot of variables specific to you and your age and health conditions. Some recoveries just take a very long time until you get to the maximum medical recovery. If I compare my spine surgery which was a single level cervical fusion to my fractured ankle that required surgery with plates and screws, and the disability of not being able to bear my body weight for a long time, the ankle recovery was much harder than the spine surgery for me.

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carmine1237 | @carmine1237 | Oct 18 10:26am
In reply to @dlydailyhope "@carmine1237 P.S. I was told for my type of spine surgery for lumbar spine (they removed..." + (show)
@dlydailyhope

@carmine1237
P.S. I was told for my type of spine surgery for lumbar spine (they removed bad discs, fused my vertebrae L3-L5 levels, put in rods and screws to stabilize, etc.), it takes about 3 months to recover from surgery and a full year to notice the full effects and benefits from surgery. I just started physical therapy at 2.5 months post surgery and would hope to notice benefits within 1-3 months. It seems your long recovery even with PT shows there may still be issues with your spine, blood flow and spinal cord/nerve roots that affect your lower body strength. Updated MRIs of your cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine can provide a surgeon with a full view of what it happening structurally and how it ties to your symptoms. The weakness in your legs is similar to what I had with compression in my lumbar spine causing neurogenic claudication. It sounds like you may also still have some vascular claudication. An orthopedic spine specialist/surgeon or neurosurgeon may be able to help pinpoint the cause of your weakness in your legs.

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Lots to think about. Thank you for your detailed response.

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