Post surgery recovery from l 345 laminectomy and discectomy.

Please be as gentle with yourself as possible and ask for a lot of help. The surgery itself is a major challenge for your body. I found that the fatigue and intermittent mood swings (down mostly) were worse than the pain. It helped that I had been forewarned of those recovery issues. After a big injury, your body rushes immune factors (cytokines) to start the healing process. These are the same chemicals that make you exhausted and depressed with influenza or Covid infections. That will pass in a few weeks. I hope you can work with your surgeon to get on top of pain and stay on top as it is harder to keep beating back pain than to keep it at bay. It is an uncomfortable time and my warmest wishes go out to you as you go through this. Music, massage, holiday TV might be distractions while the process goes on. Time can be a great healer!

How long did this pain go on? Movement is extremely difficult!

Wife had: L-3 to L-5 removal of hardware(3 Coflex implants, decompression L2 to S1 repair of dural tears L3[-L4/ L4/L5 INTERTRANSVERSE fusion /discetomy ; L4=L5 Diagnosis Severe spinal stenosis =Big mistake doing operation still in 10/10 pain 9 months after operation and spine has now shifted=Lesson learned to late-better off
living with pain!!

I had the same surgery 10 months ago. Painwise, the worst of it was the first month and a half. You didn't describe your pain so I don't know how it relates to what I experienced. I had very little back pain after surgery but severe nerve pain (both legs). I was taking daily 2400mg of gabapentin, 1000 mg of tylenol and advil every 6 hours, and oxycodone as needed. I limited the oxy unless the pain was unbearable. I think in total I took about 10 doses of the narcotic.

I moved about with a walker at first which was painful because I couldn't put hardly any weight on my legs. My wife got me a shower chair so that I could safely navigate taking a shower and other self-care tasks. Also, added a raised toilet seat. Within a month or so I was able to exchange the walker for a cane.

As I stated, after about 6 weeks the pain lessened enough that I was able to gradually reduce the gabapentin, tylenol and advil as needed and eliminate the oxycodone. I began PT at that point and gradually my nerve pain was confined to one leg. After about 2 months of PT the nerve pain was located in one area around my knee and shin. I did have a setback around 6 months due to my own foolishness in trying to lift a piece of furniture. DON'T BE LIKE ME! A lot of leg pain returned due to this and I had to retrace my path through PT.

At the present time I am taking 900 mg of gabapentin daily and working toward eliminating it. Most of my pain is gone. Daily exercise is the key to building strength and eliminating pain. Oh, and think before you try to lift anything of significant weight. I wish you the best in your journey to full recovery.

Thank you for responding. My pain is in the incision area and a little down the flutes. The incision area is tight and movement of any kind hurts, especially movement when changing positions, standing up, rolling over in bed, etc. I am extremely cold, but I think it is muscle tension protecting the wound. Probably need to increase the muscle relaxants dose.

Did you feel a gradual decrease in pain in the 1 and 1/2 months? Like a small difference each day?

Thanks for your input. Please tell Me more.

I never felt any pain around the incision. I had sciatica down both legs and nerve pain in my left thigh and shin. The pain in the back of my legs decreased over the first 4-6 weeks. The pain in the thigh and shin took much longer. It gradually retreated over 7 months until I had the mishap I mentioned in my comment. At that point, it all came back within 24 hrs. I went back to PT but tried a different approach that has worked very well. Instead of doing the same PT as before I found a physical therapist who practiced FCS or fascial counterstrain. You can read about it on the counterstrain.com website. It helped me with the nerve pain in only a few visits and I continued strengthening my legs with regular PT. But since you are only days from surgery I would think you are a long way from starting PT yet.
One other thing I would recommend to you that was very helpful to me. I purchased a TENS unit from Amazon. It did much to relieve my pain and you can use it as much as you need to. It won't cure the pain but it can give you relief while you are using it.

Wife saw "Spine Surgeon" for back and leg spinal stenosis. Had 3 surgeries in hospital. For a total of 2 previous and 3 in hosp. laminectomy. discetomy and removal of 3 spacer removal,
Now in greater pain for 9 months post surgery and spine has now shifted. Saw same "surgeon" who did hosp op showed him x rays and he said I can fix that and now you need an OBLIQUE operation to fix things. NO THANKS!! Saw other spine surgeons and they said a new revision,
revision op is to complicated and tricky considering past ops and present spinal condition do not recommend it. Now seeing pain mgt doctor gave precrip for Celeprex and offers ep;idural injection. Wife does nor want any more surgeries loking for non-surgical options to ease pain. Very sad but true story. Bottom line be very careful who operates on your back.

I had two surgeries in 2022. In 3/2022, I had a laminectomy/discectomy L5-S1. My pain was mostly from the surgical staples. Deep breathing was difficult because the it cause more pulling at the incision and staples. Once staples were removed, the pain at the incision. I ended up at the wound center. Had developed an underlying abscess under incision. After two weeks of treatment at the wound center, the pain was almost gone. They found the abscess was the issue. In 12/2022, I developed Cauda Equina Syndrome. It involved compression of the nerves that run through L3-L4. Had emergency surgery because I lost bowel and bladder surgery. Surgery went well. Was hospitalized three days and then transferred to the Rehab Hospital for a week. Developed the same type of searing pain as I did in March 2022. Went back to wound clinic after staples removed and treatment process repeated. After two weeks of visits to wound clinic, the underlying abscess resolved and 90% of the pain. I still have discomfort with prolonged standing and walking. But the pain decrease immensely with rest. The pain stopped radiating down the right leg, but still have the occasional pain and tingling numbness in front of my right thigh only. My surgery pain was minor compared to the pain I experienced from the abscesses. After a couple months post-op from both procedures, my surgical pain was gone. No more surgical staples for me. Make sure you let your team know every movement you make that worsen your pain. Hopefully you will get more relief soon.

Thank you for responding. One of the reasons I chose L3-4-5 laminectomy was my legs were numb when walking and I was told it could progress to Cauda equine. Just before surgery I had one episode on saddle numbness on
the left.

Right now the pain from surgery has subsided a little and I have more mobility in standing up , rolling over, sitting down. This first week was horrible, but I can see improvement.

I don’t think I was adequately informed about the pain following surgery. It was more like you will walk out of here the next day. This is going to be a long process but finally see some improvements.

Thank you again for your reply. You had it rough!

I had T3-5 laminectomy and fusion - the "surgeon" was very blase about recovery and said would take 4 weeks - that was completely ridiculous and untrue, I am at almost 6 months post-op and still no end in sight to pain and loss of mobility from the surgery. There is just a plateau state with no trajectory toward increased healing although I am exercising religiously and eating healthy (although cannot get enough sleep due to inability to lie on back or turn easily). I was told by others who are not surgeons to expect at least one year of this "recovery" but I presume now it may never get back to normal although I am fighting hard to somehow get better than I was pre-surgery.