I hope for a better experience with the new surgeon. If you have read very much on Connect, you will see that complications do happen, and some surgeons are better with sleeping patients than those who are awake and asking questions.

Keep remembering that you are in charge of your health, and need to have confidence that you are being heard. The fact that the nurse is asking for your MRI should inspire confidence - that means someone is planning to take a close look at what is happening inside your body.

One of the things we like to stress to each other here on Connect is to be your own best advocate. In order to do that when I am feeling upset by my situation, or my pain, I sit down and compose a letter to my prospective doctor, customer service rep, lawyer, or whoever. I try to factually lay out my situation, step by step. Then I say what I would like from them. I know emotion or anger will creep in, so I set it aside and reread and amend it the next day to be more "polite." Especially, I avoid any angry or "I should sue..." references about my previous care, rather just say exactly how I think it fell short of what I needed. For example, in your case I might say "I felt I would progress better with additional physical therapy, which the doctor refused to order because..." I don't necessarily send this letter, but it makes a good practice for presenting your case to the surgeon or his staff in a discussion, or you may want to email it to be considered along with your records.

Finally, someone, at some stage in your post-surgery, ought to have explained the tingling and pins-and-needles pains. Other sensations may be describes as shooting, burning, stabbing...Whenever you are cut, nerves are either disturbed by being moved around, or cut, depending on the procedure. Nerves get very angry when this happens, and let you know with that type of pain. Now, eventually nerves do regenerate, at a VERY SLOW pace - after knee repair surgery it took well over a year for my nerves to calm down. And during much of that time, the disruption caused my brain not to know where my foot was, so I often stumbled, tripped, and fell. Occasionally, the nerve refuses to cooperate, or maybe gets pinched in a bad spot, and the pain keeps on. At that point more investigation is needed to find a solution.

I am sending you my very best wishes that the new surgeon agrees to work with you to get to the root of the problem.

Are you thinking about writing a letter to clarify your situation?

Sue