What is recovery like after minimally invasive lumbar spine surgery?
My husband is having this surgery to remove a cyst from L4. We are told 45-60 minutes’ surgery under general anesthesia. He can go home after a couple of hours in recovery and will have rather vague limitations on activity (6-12 weeks without strenuous sports). He is 68, an avid cyclist, and he lifts weights several times a week. Will we need extra help at night at first? What preparations ahead of time would help the home transition go well? Thanks, everyone!
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I wish you well! i just wish that my neurosurgeon had sent me to physical therapy a couple of weeks after my first laminectomy. It’s so hard to return to athletics as we get older. I was 63 and still could work through the pain but hindsight is always better than pred
Predicting 😜
I had an L2 synovial cyst which was partially calcified removed via a laminectomy 3 weeks ago. The first 6 weeks limitations were:
only lifting 10 pounds at waist level
No bending, lifting or twisting.
No sitting or walking beyond 30 min.
I needed
a raised toilet seat with handles( commode with the bucket removed), long handled reacher,
Long handled shoe horn
Long handled sponge
sock aide
Hands free sneakers
This is so helpful. Many thanks! How much pain did you experience?
I am having a similar issue. I couldn't get an appointment with the PT that my surgeon recommended, so I went to another mediocre place until the PT he recommended can see me. But I have some questions for anybody, especially Jennifer. Today I was in a situation where I had to walk farther than I have and now my body feels really weird. It feels kind of "bouncy" when I walk, like I am walking on a trampoline almost. Is this something I should worry about ? Also a pain management Dr I see wants to give me injections of Collagen. Has anyone heard of that ? Thanks
I only took Tylenol and flexeril the first two days sporadically. I took them both before bed for a week. No narcotics even though prescribed.
Every recovery is as unique as the individual. No recovery is the same. Not even on the same patient. Mayo has absolutely fantastic medical social workers, whose jobs are to give you the best answers, and possible evaluations in order to determine these answers for these exact questions. However, and very generally speaking, day surgeries, which is what you have described, do not require over night assistance, or, they would absolutely keep the patient over night. Ask the surgeon these, any, and all of your questions, ask his nurses, my chart messages to them, with any and all of your concerns, and, get the phone number for the medical social worker who is working that O.R. or Group of Surgeons, or however they have divided up the medical social workers that day, for that department and your hubby. Sending you happy encouraging jujus. I wish you the best healing, and a great summertime. -mary
@annie1 Hi Annie. I'm glad to see you here in the community. I think what you are describing is fatigue of weak muscles. Muscles work in opposition to each other. An easy example to understand is to think about your arm. The biceps bends your elbow, and the triceps on the back of the arm helps coordination that movement like softly pressing the brakes, so you can slow and stop the movement of the bending arm, and also coordinate the fine tuning, so your arm doesn't loose control. All over your body, muscles oppose each other for coordination and pull against their attachment points on the skeleton.
If you have a situation with a weakened muscle and you're working to strengthen it, it will wear out, but the muscle that opposes it may be a lot stronger. It sounds like a weak muscle tries to relax, and the stronger muscle kicks in when the weak neighbor gives up a bit, so it goes back and forth loosing a bit of coordination. I'd be curious if your physical therapist gives you and explanation like that.
FYI, you can take collagen as a supplement, and there is lots of collagen in meat because it is in the connective tissue that holds it together. I don't know what advantage there is to injecting collagen, but that would be a question to ask your doctor.
Jennifer
@wendyhobbie @anni1 I relate to your posts so well! I was 14 days post op, and most of my pain relief came from ice and movement. I have another issue which makes narcotics way worse than helpful, nevertheless, I was so uncomfortable, I took some, and by day 14, I was fit to be tied, called and mycharted my surgeon, and told him I was going to my physical therapist and that could either be with his blessing and restrictions, or, without them, because moving around was my best source of pain relief. It was not 40 minutes later when my physical therapist's office telephoned me to say they had received a new faxed prescription for my spinal surgery rehab! It's your body. Be your best advocate.