Laminectomy surgery

Cotton. I had a laminectomy 11 years ago. It went well.

How long was your recovery time ?

While my comments might not be specifically directed to just a Laminectomy surgery, but wanted to share anyway. It has been a year since I had Laminectomy and Spinal Fusion surgery. An 11 /12 hour surgery from T-10 to S-1.

I am only logging in to encourage you to go to places like the Mayo Connect so that you can talk to real people with real experiences. One of my biggest issues was to be able to others who actually had the surgery. The doctors can only give you estimates and averages. They are human. I a good deal of my time laying in the bed because of the pain / discomfort. My neurosurgeon is one of the best and with a well known practice in a top 50 market, he did his thing and pronounced it “successful” but I am in worse shape now than when I went in a year ago. I changed to a pain management group about six from my surgery because I wanted someone to actually monitor my pain medication and help me systematically lower my doses. You would never talk to the neurosurgeon but you would call his office and request a refill and they never talked to you but would adjust the doses based upon what they felt was appropriate. You would get a periodic questionnaire which was general and would not allow you to specifically articulate how you were actually feeling and ask questions. When I asked about my progress at the one, three and six month check up I would be told “you have had major surgery and it will take a while”. Does that mean 6 months ? 9 months ? 12 months or longer ?

So excuse the excessive rhetoric, just make sure that you get other second and third opinions before having a Laminectomy / Spinal Fusion.

Hopefully you will have a successful outcome.

Recovery from a major cervical and thoracic fusion surgery with laminectomy. The first thing I noticed when I woke up was the pain in my arm and shoulder were completely gone. I’m told this was because of the laminectomy.

Just make sure you have a very competent surgeon! Always dress comfortable for surgery. Wear pajamas if that’s what makes you comfy, then when it’s over you can crawl into bed. For several of my surgeries I found the best thing to wear were t-shirt dresses with pockets. I cut holes in the pockets from the inside to slide drains and feeding tubes through.

Hope this helps

All I can say is that I hope you got at least one other opinion on this laminectomy, Many times they do this kind of surgery and the pain is no better. Ask me how I know.

Your post is spot on. I was recommended by an orthopedic surgeon to have spinal fusion at L5-S1 to correct spondylolisthesis ( vertebrae have been forced out of alignment). This was a year and a half after a ski fall that put me in a lot of lower back pain. I had managed to get the pain under decent control with meds, but still had occasional bad days. Being somewhat naïve in regards to this kind of stuff, I consented to the surgery. Four months post surgery, I was still in pain. They listed it as "Failed back surgery Syndrome". A fancy way of saying, "the surgery was a success, but the patient did not benefit". Advice: get at least one second opinion!

Was the injury by an accident; getting fusion for S-1 it T-10 is one heck of an operation and just the nerve endings and muscle rebuilding would take a couple years.
I am fused for S-1 to T-12, however my surgeries started in 1987 and the last one was in 2021. I now have another disc bugle with a tear on the nerve at the T-12. I am not sure what I am going to do yet; my pain doctor is treating with injections to see if it will heal the tear. I do have a Metronic’s pain pump implanted and this has been a miracle and has allow been to do some of things I love to do.
Good luck with the operation; and remember the neurosurgeon does not treat pain and they step away from treatment as soon as you heal from the surgery. I hate that as it feel they walk away from there work, good or bad.

Hi Grancor, Thank you for your comments. I too have chronic pain and have tried everything under the sun without any benefits. The pain management doctor recently started me on Gabapentin and Belbuca for the pain. This doctor does not do the pain pump. He has referred me to another doctor that does. I haven't met him for a consultation for the pain pump. Do you know if there are other companies other than Metronics that make the pain pump? Also, can you tell me what percentage of your pain was helped by the pump? How was the procedure and how often do you have to refill the medicine? Thank you for your reply. Marty

Thanks so much for your response. Always helpful to know that others have or are walking the same path.

My surgery was not because of an accident. Just progressive back / nerve degeneration. Guess I should be grateful (I am !) because I was headed for life in a wheel chair before my surgery and at least now I am able to get around even if I am still in pain / discomfort.