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Sciatic nerve graft at sciatic notch. Question about recovery.
Hi there I'm brand new to this group. I'm going to give you the full story of what has happened to me. I am in a hospital in New York City I'm still in the acute rehab portion. Approximately 4 weeks ago I had a bilateral hip replacement.. so both hips replaced at the same time in the same operation. As far as the hips themselves the surgery went fine. I experienced no pain in my hips following the surgery. However when I came out of recovery I noticed that I did not feel my foot whatsoever and I could not move it, my right foot. After some investigation what we found out was that my orthopedic surgeon accidentally during the surgery put a screw part of the sciatic nerve right around the sciatic notch. 4 days after the surgery following MRIS etc, my surgeon along with a neurosurgeon went back in and removed the screw and performed a nerve graft to repair the sciatic nerve damage again near the sciatic notch. They used a piece of nerve from around my ankle that they said was not used very often.
So it has now been about 4 weeks since that surgery I still have no feeling in my foot or any use of it or my ankle at all. I do have full use of my calf and my quads. My hamstring I'm not really sure yet whether that was effected. It is very weak but I was bed bound for quite some time before my hip surgery so it's not clear yet whether that's just due to normal weakness or due to the damage to the sciatic nerve. An addition I have a numb strip from my ankle up to my hip that is only about a half an inch wide that roughly follows the IT band I believe. That's just to give you a reference to where it is it doesn't have anything to do with the IT band. So it's on the bottom right hand portion of my leg.
Now I know it takes a very long time for nerves to regenerate. Especially since I'm a very tall person. I'm 6'3. So from what I understand the nerve has to regenerate all the way from my sciatic notch all the way down to my foot and so we're looking at 2 years probably.
That brings me to I question I am not any kind of doctor I'm just a regular patient that's done a little bit of research. I am curious from people here with experience as to what percentage of adults with a similar entry that got treated within the same amount of time (4 days) see meaningful recovery of sensation and/or functionality at all. I do know that EMGs will help answer that question for myself individually. I'm due for my first one in about 10 days. But I wonder if somebody could give me a general idea of the percentage of people that recover, that would be very helpful.
Thank you so much.
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Hello @drewduffy1, Welcome to Connect. I know it must be a little scary just thinking about the recovery time involved with nerve repair surgery. I'm guessing you read about the nerve grows at a rate of about an inch a month - https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/surgical-repair-nerve. While you wait for members with experience to respond, I did a search of Connect using "nerve repair surgery recovery time" and thought you might like to scan through the related member discussions and comments. Here are the search results with links to the discussions and comments - https://connect.mayoclinic.org/search/.
Hopefully you will get some answers following your upcoming EMGs.
Thank you John.
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1 ReactionHi there, I’m sorry you had to go through all this, but let me encourage you that you are very early in your process! It can take up to 10 years for nerves to fully regenerate. The good news is that they can. The bad news is that you might have to wait and be patient! You are very brave to have two hips done at one time. I had two hips done, but they were done separately. And then I had my lumbar spine done. Unfortunately, I was at a neurosurgeon who waited far too long to do absolutely nothing and then I was sent to an orthopedic surgeon who did surgery right away, but in the neglect of not having done the spine surgery in the proper amount of time I ended up with dysfunctional nerves down my left leg to my foot. I am pretty used to it by now after 15 or 20 years of the numbness down the side of my lower left leg. I regained the feeling in my toes and after my lumbar surgery, I had nerve dysfunction on the top of my foot. It actually may not be nerve dysfunction. It could be that I was actually feeling where once there was numbness and it may be arthritis and not nerve damage. It’s really hard to tell sometimes and I have a very caring and competent orthopedic spine surgeon. However, there’s some things he just doesn’t know and can’t ascertain and I have to accept that. You are very early in your recovery and it should take you a year or two before you actually figure out where you stand. (Ha ha ha I just made a pun.!)
My biggest advice to you is to do all of the physical therapy and rehab that your doctors and team order for you. That is going to be the most helpful and speed up your recovery. The quickest. After having multiple surgeries for over 15 years, I can absolutely tell you that gaining your muscle strength back however you can do that is going to be the most effective way for you to recover and to eventually determine what’s permanent and what’s not you will get through this and then you will help others with your experience and I just figure after all these surgeries I have that it’s “character building!“