Recovery Lumbar3-Lumbar5 Laminectomy and Fusion w/ Instrumentation

Good luck Lois! I’m glad u have post op support

@lois88
I’m so glad that you shared your story. Please ask if you have questions along the way 😊
Best wishes for a successful surgery next week!
Sherry

Thank you so much. I have never been apart of a support group and it’s value is obvious.

My surgery is Wednesday and I am so grateful for all who have shared their experiences and suggestions as to how to get through the early recovery. It means a lot to have you all out there helping.

Has anyone had crushing fatigue after having a spinal fusion surgery? I am struggling with this at 7 weeks out and I am struggling to get back to where I was. All that I did today was take a shower and it totally wiped me out. I also have neuropathy.

Lois, your story sounds like mine. I am recovering from 2 lower spine fusions ( L3-L5) with instrumentation. However neither reduced my idiopathic pain to any appreciable degree. My latest discussion with my Ortho/neuro surgeon was disheartening after je reviewed X Rays yesterday from the Feb 23 surgery. I had a MRI this morning and hope that it shows something the that can be treated. The X rays yesterday reviewed by the surgeon showed a deterioration of the hardware placement and support after 6 months. I wish you better luck in your surgery

I hope those of you who have written to me lately (not sure why now after I posted a year ago), I want to tell you that my surgery (L3-L5) was totally successful! I had a great neurosurgeon at Kaiser Permanente in Seattle. It took time to recover (and I had an unfortunate serious GI issue unrelated to the actual surgery) that kept me in the hospital for a total of 12 days. Once home, with the guidance of my surgeon and PT/OT, I have recovered beautifully. I have my last appointment next month with my surgeon as it will be one year since the surgery. At the moment, I am still not supposed to lift over 20 lbs. or take a suitcase off a carousel (I have been traveling some), so I use wheelchair assistance just to get through TSA due to the lifting up and down on the security belt. Otherwise, I walk the airport. I am walking 2-3 miles a day (some outside and some on a treadmill) and slowly working my way back to 3.0 on the treadmill and hopefully back to 4 miles (currently at 2.2 and 3 miles as I increase very slowly). I do have persistent lower back pain (but my legs are fine!) and I do exercises every morning that generally get me to late afternoon when I take some tylenol.

I needed and was fortunate to have 24/7 caregivers for 10 days. I only wanted my family to do so much and literally wiping my ass was not one of those things or if I need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I didn't want to disturb them as they did so much for me all day long. The bidet (and I just used a normal one without heating and all the cool things they apparently have) was and is very useful! My hired caregivers loved it.

I wish you all well and hope if you are not well now, you will get better (what my surgeon continued to tell me and he was right). It takes persistence and in the beginning I was so fortunate to have lots of personal support. I had family living with me for the first month and continued to remind me to use ice on 20 min., ice off: walking 20 min. twice a day (started with 10 min and built up) with a walker in my condo garage, and having protein at every meal. I consider myself incredibly fortunate.

My best, Lois

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@lois88 Good for you, I hope for some kind of turn around in my lower spine condition to end up half as good as yours.