Distraction pain?

[truck54]

Hey forum.. I have been trying to figure out if the pain I'm feeling is distraction pain... My pain is in both legs, from front of thighs down.. Feels like pressure, and ants walking around. Knees hurt on occasion. Sharp prickling, sometimes hot sensations.. For those of you who have had this distraction pain does this sound like what you had? I'm four months post op now and am just thinking it would be nice to hear symptoms from others!!

[Harrison]

The "top" docs will tell you that there is no such thing as "distraction" pain, though most post-op patients will tell you differently! Maybe the docs like Scott-Young and Bertagnoli have more refined techniques, so they are less likely to over "stretching" the ligaments that could lead to pain.

A reminder that there are myriad variables in the surgical procedure:

- patients' conditions: I started to autofuse in 2004, so more work was needed to clean out the L5-S1 space and open it for the device. Every patient is different!

- disc designs: nuff said. Look at the mfr's surgical guides in that forum.

- tool sets: these surgical tools change and improve; and they do vary across mfrs.

- post-op care: what you do post-operatively can greatly affect your pain levels; e.g. diet, (anti-inflammatory?) meds, rest, PT and state of mind all contribute to your pain levels.

So, lots to consider here. Nothing is ever simple or easy, eh!?

[hey_look_its_dave]

I would just add that I think the height of the disc is important.

I got an Activ-L at L5-S1 and I believe, from looking at the x-rays & MRIs, that the intervertebral space is slightly larger than my "normal" height. As a result, I think the nerve roots are being stretched very very slightly more than they would like.

I'm not very tall and I believe I read that the Activ-L, which comes in various sizes and heights, was able to give the smallest intervertebral space of all the discs available. There may be smaller ones now though.

Dave

[janaya3]

Originally Posted by hey_look_its_dave

I would just add that I think the height of the disc is important...

I'm not very tall and I believe I read that the Activ-L, which comes in various sizes and heights, was able to give the smallest intervertebral space of all the discs available. There may be smaller ones now though.

Dave

Yes this is definitely one advantage over the Activ-L that it has the smallest disc height (8.5 mm-- once assembled) of the artificial disc replacements available now which is thought to minimize distraction pain. The smallest height of all other artificial disc(s) is 10 mm, if I am not mistaken but please feel free to correct me. My L4-L5 definitely looks unusually "open and spacious" when compared to the other levels.

[Harrison]

Reminder of the poll (thanks for voting):

Distraction Pain - Poll

The vote stats at the moment are widely distributed; perhaps not too surprising. Think about it for a moment: how much of the anatomy in the area of surgery is decompressed and stretched -- other than the nerves? Muscles, fascia, ligaments, etc.? That must surely contribute to the pain that some of us call distraction pain; whereas most folks are focused on nerves in terms of the definition of distraction.

I dunno. Just wondering.

Truck54, when you can, please update your post-op topic. Hope you are much better!

[JeffR]

Just as a data point Clavel acknowledges distraction pain in his post op instructions though he doesn't refer to it by name.