@drxtract
Hi, there. I am about 4 months post L3-L5 decompression and fusion surgery. I was told it could take a full year to recover and see where my symptoms stand. Before surgery, I had severe central stenosis and neurogenic claudication caused by degenerative disc disease and congenitally narrow spinal canal. The pain/weakness/numbness in my lower back, hips, buttocks, legs and feet was really bad and affected standing, walking, stairs, etc. Post surgery, pain was 11/12 out of 10 off the charts! It started to get better over several weeks and my numbness improved noticeably.

After 2 months, it seemed I was getting better and then all of a sudden I started to get significant pain in my hips/hip flexors which made standing, bending over, walking and stairs very difficult. It feels like severe nerve pain. I have been taking NSAIDs that don’t really help, use Voltaren pain gel, capsaicin nerve pain cream and lidocaine pain patches. They help a little but not much.

My primary doctor finally prescribed me Lyrica 25 mg once per day for nerve pain. I tried gabapentin in the past but that made me too dizzy/sleepy. It took me a while to adjust to Lyrica but now I am less dizzy and it helps numb the nerve pain a bit. I see my doctor tomorrow and she may increase me from 25 mg to 50 mg. I also take antidepressants and antipsychotics to help me deal with major depression due to chronic pain.

You may want to see if you could go to a pain management center to help you manage pain now that you are 3 months the out from surgery. Surgeons don’t really do much for long term pain management post surgery/follow-up so don’t suffer in silence. You may want to try the Salonpas large pain patches on your lower back above your left buttock to see if that helps you when standing/walking to minimize the nerve pain. You may also want to try ice to relieve any inflammation that irritates your nerves when walking. If you had any neurogenic claudication before surgery, I understand nerves may regenerate after surgery and cause nerve pain while healing.

Hopefully, you will start to feel some relief over the next few months. A big milestone is 6 months and then you will see where you are with symptoms compared to pre-surgery symptoms. I reach the 6 month mark in February.