@karenoharmon Hi! Thank you so much for sharing your experience!
What vertebrae’s did you have fused?
In two weeks, I will be at the one year post op. You are asking about some benchmarks of how you might feel in the future so I will share what I am experiencing.
I remember at around the six or seven month timeframe, I was feeling much stronger and more “normal”. I have been experiencing a lot of nerve pain across my back that is just below the skin level. My therapist has recently started with skin rolling, which is a type of myofascial release and it is really helping. She is rolling the skin and it is breaking free the connective tissues under my skin that were affected during the surgery. It’s not comfortable when she does it, but I feel immediate relief when she is done. That and my daily gabapentin, really makes me feel better.
I think it is a very reasonable goal for someone to think that they will be doing pretty well at around that one year mark. When I look back at my surgery date, one year seem like an eternity but now when I am here, it really did fly by. It’s important to take it day by day and not do anything to jeopardize your healing. The surgery is such a major thing and it’s important to be patient And let your body heal.
I have horses that I need to train and I am literally chomping at the bit to start working with them, but I know that I need to be patient. I’m getting an x-ray in two weeks for the surgeon to look at how things have fused. I’m hoping he gives me the thumbs up for me to get more active with the horses. I am walking, exercising, lifting up bags of dog food, feeding horses, cleaning gutters and doing everything that I would normally do, I just do it slower and with good lifting technique. I’ve been doing this since about month three.
Please feel free to ask any questions that you might have.
Wishing you the best! Sherry😊