← Return to Spondylolisthesis and DDD

Discussion

Spondylolisthesis and DDD

Spine Health | Last Active: Jan 21, 2020 | Replies (64)

Comment receiving replies
@jenniferhunter

Ruth Ann, I'm glad you are able to walk. A lot of patients talk about sleeping in a recliner after spine surgery. I didn't need that with my cervical surgery, but it might be something to try if it helps your leg pain. You might want to ask your surgeon about that too, and why it happens at night. Is it the position when you lay down that causes the pain, or is it the fatigue at the end of the day? Is there anything you can do with pillows to support your body or legs that helps? Maybe a pillow between your legs to keep your pelvis straight inline with your legs? Maybe cooling with ice packs? It's very tiring to recover from major surgery and your body is directing its energy into healing the trauma from the procedure. You will have swelling and inflammation, and that kind of ramps up any other inflammation you may have. Inflammation is needed for healing and fusing bones, so that is why patients need to avoid anti-inflammatories post op. You probably knew that, but I mention it for anyone else. For me, the post op inflammation made my thoracic outlet syndrome worse for awhile, and I had to just be patient and it kind of made me crazy waiting until my physical therapist could help. The 6 week mark made a big improvement for me, and I suspect you will recover faster because you were in good shape and conditioning before your surgery.

Jump to this post


Replies to "Ruth Ann, I'm glad you are able to walk. A lot of patients talk about sleeping..."

Jennifer, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I DID NOT know that about anti-inflammatories after surgery. Ibuprofen is what I have primarily been taking, round the clock! Combined with Tylenol for 10 days. Since reading your message my husband and I have looked it up. Sure enough, they say studies have shown that it is particularly important NOT to take anti-inflammatories in the initial stages after surgery! This is how this came about. After the surgery my friend came and visited me the day after in the hospital. My friend is an infectious disease doctor. She saw that I was experiencing a lot of nausea from the Hydracodone. She recommended I change to Ibuprofen and Tylenol...she even talked to the nurses about making the change. She obviously should not have done this and I'm not sure why the on-call doctors did not check up on it! I'm pretty upset and have a call in to my surgeon's office but have not heard back yet.

Your suggestions regarding the leg pain at night are good ones. The recliner and the ice pack are my good friends, also the pillow between or under my knees at night.

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge. If you had not said anything this might have gone on and apparently it could really set back the success of the fusion, I hope it hasn't already.