Hello Scott! Welcome to our Mayo Clinic Connect community. Thank you for serving our country!

http://mayocl.in/2rCM3Kz- Please follow this link to other conversation taking place on Connect. There, you will meet other members that have also experienced spinal fusion and will find some of the information they have shared helpful.

You said you are trying acupuncture, I found this article http://mayocl.in/2aMkr2V on cupping therapy, another alternative medicine option interesting.
My husband suffers from severe leg muscle cramping (he broke his femur in his 20's) and notices it's worse in the spring and when he hasn't been diligent with his water consumption. He also eats bananas- sometimes 2 or 3 a day and swears that it helps his muscle cramps.

@scottyrussell, have muscle relaxers helped with the cramping?

@scottyrussell. I have had a tremendous amount of pain on the right side of my back, hip, leg, knee and ankle for over a year. The other day 2 people worked on me for 30 minutes twice doing "muscle release and myofascial therapy". It completely stopped my pain! I had been taking Gabapentin and Baclofen previously, but tappered off both. My pain improved when I got off the Gabapentin, to my surprise. I had cramps in my thighs that made me cry they were so bad at times. The therapist worked on a muscle in my groin until I felt it release. Im sure that was what was causing my extreme pain.

@gailb, I can literally feel your pain. I had cramps in my thighs which I know now were from cirrhosis, but they started at least three years before the cirrhosis diagnosis. They were so bad they basically paralyzed me. My husband desperately wanted to help me and at one point when my son was visiting and I had them he wanted the two of them to carry me to the car and bring me to a hospital! If he had moved me I am sure I would have passed out from the pain. Thankfully those cramps only happened about three times a year. I did have other bad cramps from cirrhosis, multiple times a night that woke me up and got me out of bed, but nothing like the ones in my thighs.
JK

@contentandwell conten. Thanks for your response. How did you find out about your cirrhosis? How are you dealing with it? I really know little about this disease. Anything you are willing to share would be helpful.
Thanks, Gail B. Ledesma

@gailb It was a long road to finding out I had cirrhosis. The first obvious symptom was an HE episode. I was sort of illogical. It was Christmas Eve 2013, our son and daughter were here (both live away -- one in CA, one in NYC) and I said in the middle of dinner that I was going upstairs to take a nap! Right away they knew something was wrong so they called the EMTs and an ambulance, they thought I might be having a stroke or something. By the time I got to the hospital I was fine and it was diagnosed as fatigue, dehydration, low magnesium, and a UTI. Then my PCP called me a couple of weeks later and told me she thought I had Alzheimer's! She was quickly history. I went to a neurologist (who guffawed at her diagnosis) and my hematologist, my new PCP, but no one could figure it out. In the meantime I continued to have these episodes sporadically.
Then I got an episode that put me in the hospital -- I was basically acting mentally catatonic. That episode took about a day and a half to pass. This was a year and four months after my first episode. A hospitalist put the symptoms together and ordered an ammonia test -- if you have liver problems the liver does not filter out toxins like ammonia created when you eat a lot of meat, and it goes to your brain. My ammonia was very high which led to a CT that confirmed cirrhosis. Now why my PCP who is supposedly very good could not put those symptoms together will always plague me. Was it because I never jaundiced? I think he is going to be history next. I had an appointment with him on Friday and as he looked over my info he said I had cirrhosis and cholestasis (a gall bladder problem). I looked at him and asked how could that be, I had a new non-cirrhotic liver and when you get a new liver it does not come with a gall bladder. He couldn't figure that out? He was looking at results from six months prior to my transplant!

Thankfully my transplant took place on September 23rd, for which I will be forever grateful. When they dissected my liver it was almost totally spent so I guess I could have not gone on much longer without a transplant. I was one of only two women with my profile to be transplanted at MGH in the last quarter of 2016 (stats from Compare Transplant Centers). I thank God multiple times daily, there were an incredible number of people praying for me. I must be hearty stock because up until the last month and a half I looked great and was functioning normally except when an HE episode occurred. The last month and a half I bloated up with edema and ascites, I was miserable. I have become passionate about encouraging people to get listed as organ donors. I told my son and daughter that was all I wanted for mother's day, for them to sign up.

So, I hope I haven't gone on too much but that's the whole story. The biggest change I would make would be to go to MGH or one of the other excellent hospitals in Boston, much sooner. After six months of no diagnosis I should have just gone. Despite my other symptoms -- continually decreasing platelet counts, constantly cold, fatigue, blood pressure got lower -- they were looking toward neurological problems. I feel so fortunate that we are only about 60 miles from Boston.
JK

@contentandwell What do you mean by the phase "HE episode"? Teresa

I am so sorry for your suffering. It sounds like you have been through alot. I have learned over the years that there are good doctors and not so good doctors. What does a doctor get when he graduates at the bottom of his class? He gets to become a doctor! I will pray for you and hope you are not suffering. I was wondering what a HE episode is as well.
Best wishes for good days.
Kristine

I am so glad you found something that works. I have used this type of therapy and it has helped for the moment but the pain comes back right away. I hope you continue to feel good and it inspires me to continue to look for treatments that may help.
Kristine

@hopeful33250 I refer to them as episodes, perhaps others do not, but HE is when a high amount of ammonia gets to your brain and effects you. Initially with me it just caused some confusion and irrationalness. As time went on and my cirrhosis progressed it got worse to the point, as I mentioned, I was basically staring into space and non-responsive. That was when my husband called an ambulance to get me to the hospital because I was aware enough to be battling him. I was also aware enough to correct the grammar of the EMT! Since my HE was sporadic and isolated, not something that was a constant presence at all I think of them as episodes. With some people there is always an amount of HE. Thankfully with me when I was not having an episode I lived a normal life doing all the normal things, including going to my health club for exercise. After being in the hospital I was put on lactulose which forces the toxins out of your systems in your waste. That can be a problem in that the need to eliminate can come very quickly so it kept me in the house a lot. Then when I went to Boston that doctor put me on xifaxan which works in a different way and I was able to be totally normal for almost a year. Again, the progression of cirrhosis caught up with me and I had be on both the xifaxan and the dreaded lactulose. Lactulose is dreaded by pretty much all cirrhosis patients. As one person mentioned when you finally no longer have to take it you feel like doing a "happy dance". 😉
JK

@pinkpain51 If this message is directed to me, thankfully I am no longer suffering at all, except for a few side-effects from the immunosuppressants. People keep telling me how well I look, and I am happy to hear that, plus I feel great.
JK