I am hoping that this post will find somebody out there that was or is in the same situation I am in.
This Monday April 9th I will be 3 months post op. I am so frustrated as my pain level is still worse than before surgery. I cannot understand why as the x-rays look great, I had a top surgeon do the ADR (Dr Bitan NYC)and I haven't done anything at all stressful to have rehurt my back.
I still cannot drive my car, even sitting in a car irritates my back I cannot go any longer than 15 minutes. I am really baffled as to why this doesn't seem to be working.
Before my surgery I had a Facet Injection, a Facet Nerve Block, 2 Epidurals and TWO Discograms. All of these tests pointed to L5-S1 as the source of the pain. I have in my Dr's words "a remarkable back" so I don't understand why I am not seeing even a tiny improvement.
I do an equal amount of walking around my house and walking on the treadmill as I do resting on the sofa. I have been very careful not to do anything stupid to risk messing up the disk.
I do not have any pain in my legs, I do have alot of pain in my buttocks and hips when I am in bed, it is especially painful when I wake up first thing in the morning. I get very little sleep unless I take Ambien CR before I go to bed, I don't have this butt/hip pain during the day only really at night.
I am in great health except for my back I am not overweight I eat all the right foods ect.......
I am sure alot of you will say it is still early days yet which I do somewhat agree, but I would think and Dr Bitan also told me that I shouldn't be in this much pain (usually between 7 and 9) 3 months out.
I should also mention my meds. I am taking 60mg Kadian every 12 hours and 15mg MSIR for breakthrough every 6 hours. I have been taking these for a month now and my body seems to be adjusting to them already, they don't work as effectively as they did the first week. I saw PM Dr on Tuesday he will not up the doses any higher said it would cause other problems.
I so badly want to be able to get back to normal and do fun things again, like getting dressed up and going out to dinner with my husband, or go shopping in the mall NOT in a mall wheelchair!!!!
Can anybody help me out here?? I don't know where to turn next!! What would you do if you were in my shoes???
Thank You,

Hi Sharon

I'm so sorry that you're still struggling, you have my every sympathy. I am almost 5 months out & am much worse that I was pre-op http://adrsupport.org/groupee_common...icon_frown.gif Like you, my disc looks fine on xray & I've tried to be really careful (not always easy!) Yes it is still early days & it's disheartening to read the success stories on here when we're still feeling crap.

All I can say is listen to your body, if it tells you to rest then rest. Pacing is the big key but not always easy for some (ie, me!) Stay in touch at least with your PM Dr who should be able to help with your pain meds. Have you had your 3 month check with your surgeon yet? If not then tell him your concerns & if he's good he should listen & try to help although in my experience the surgeon just see's the disc looks ok & sends you on your way or back to PM!

At the moment I feel like I'm just collecting more health problems!! I'm going for a chat with my physio on Tuesday to see what options they may have available for me, ie, accupuncture, massage etc. I also have to phone & make a new appointment with my PM to see about trying a nerve med such as Gabapentin or Lyrica although I need to look into these more, my biggest worry is the side effect of weight gain which I really, really don't want as I've worked so hard to get & keep the weight off. When they tried me on Amitriptyline in January I put on a stone (14lb) in 4 weeks, it was awful especially as the drug never helped! Thankfully now I've lost 11lb of it & hope to lose the rest & a bit more.

I'm not sure what else there is I can say as I feel in the same predicament, maybe, hopefully someone else will come along with more help http://adrsupport.org/groupee_common...icon_smile.gif

Take care http://adrsupport.org/groupee_common...icon_smile.gif

Hello Sharon,

I can totally relate to the situation you are going through right now. I am five months post ADR surgery at L4-L5 using the Prodisc device and my pain continues to increase. I too had an excellent surgeon, Dr. Yue at Yale University, perform my surgery and my X Rays and Ct Scan show that everything with the replaced disc looks perfect. My 3 month CT Scan showed a new herniation at L5-S1, with which I just completed a series of injections that were absolutely worthless. I am going in for facet injections on Tuesday, 4/10, because my PM Dr. believes that may be the pain generator. I understand how frustrating this ordeal can be!!!!

My body also seems to adjust to pain meds quickly. I too have a hard time sleeping and I now have pain in my right buttocks, which I never had prior to 2 months ago. I am on the Duragesic Patch 75mcg/hr, however my PM is going to increase it to 100 mcg/hr for me on my next visit, 4/10. I was on Kadian 60 mg last summer, but It did not work at all for me. For some reason morphine does not take away my pain. I had my meds changed to Dilauded 40mg twice a day plus oxycodone IR which worked so much better. I still had a good amount of pain, but as you know there is pain that is tolerable and then there is pain that makes you want to die!! What are the reasons your PM will not increase or change your meds? I am fortunate in the fact that my PM is compassionate and is always willing to attempt to help me in my medication difficulties.

Please keep in touch and let me know how things are going. You will be in my prayers which so often is the only thing that keeps me going. Thanks for sharing, it really helps to know that I am not alone in my trials.

Jaret

Hi Sharon,
I'm not sure exactly what you are telling us here?

I seem to read between the lines that what you are saying is that your medication is not working and keeping you out of pain? You need to break the pain cycle if possible. If your medication isn't working you know the old saying "change it".

I know it's infuriating seeing other people recover much more quickly than you but we are all different and we all need to give our bodies time to recover. Remember that there have been huge changes taking place with your spine being "jacked up" (distraction) and many nerves and muscles and blood vessels stretched and put into trauma.

You need may be just to back off a little bit on the exercises, and just learn to take your time -- -- -- PACING -- -- -- it's what it's called. There's all about pacing in the FAQs, and do remember

Slow and Steady Wins this Race -- - http://adrsupport.org/groupee_common...icon_smile.gif

Also remember that depending on the way you perform this recovery, will probably affect you for the rest of your life so even if it takes another nine to 10 months before you're doing handsprings, it will have been worth it in the end.
Best,
Alastair http://adrsupport.org/groupee_common...icon_smile.gif
PS do remember that Lyndsay suffers with fibromyalgia, so her recovery will be very slow.

Hi Alastair,
I just want to clarify what I am getting at here. I feel that I am not recovering period! I did not have any other problems at all with my back before surgery and I have no distraction pain. I have changed my meds 4 times to try and get pain controlled, my Dr won't give me anything stronger than what I am taking now. Dr Bitan told me he has performed over 450 ADR surgerys and I am only the 3rd patient that has had these high levels of pain 3 months out. I am not very happy to be in the bottom 3 of his patients. The pain I have is exactly the same as before surgery only now it feels worse. Everybody at the hospital told me that when I came out of surgery I would still feel pain but it would be a different kind of pain. This pain has always been the same as before surgery since day 1 of my surgery.
My big concern right now is maybe the disc is not what is causing the pain, and I would like to know if anybody else was in the same situation I am in and found out there was something else going on. I had 2 discograms and they both were positive for L5-S1. My body very well could be very slow healing but I don't want to be sitting here finding out in a years time it wasn't the disc after all that was causing the pain but something different, I feel that I should get a little proactive now!
Thank you everyone else also for your replys.

Are you doing any type of medial glute stretches or anything for stretching the hamstrings? If not I would highly suspect that as a contributing factor.

Hello again Sharon,

We seem to be going through similar situations. Like you, I thought that I was just a slow healer, but my pain just continues to escalate. I am having more tests done this week to see if my facet joints may be the reason. My last CT Scan shows a new herniated disc at L5-S1. I will have to endure yet another discogram to see if the L5-S1 is the pain generator. Can they test the facet joints during the discogram or can that only be done during a series of facet injections? I am just confused and frustrated that I seem to be back to my pre surgery pain levels. My PM believes that the pain is coming from either my facet joints or my new herniation. Any advice or comments would be greatly appreciated!!! Sometimes I feel as if I am going through all this blind and alone, but then I read something on this site that really speaks to me. This website has truly been a Godsend!! Thanks in advance foe any advice or helpful hints.

Jaret

It would be hard to test both facets and disk in the same session but with some prior planning it might be possible. A lot would depend on whether or not the disk pain, if you had any, could be shut down after the discogram. If you couldn't shut down the disk pain, you'd probably not be able to tell if the facet injections really lessened your pain.

Have you had the sacroiliac joint injected? Just a thought as your pain seems to be radiating in the behind area and if the sacro is inflamed it could be causing a lot of symptomology.

Terry Newton

Hi Sharon,
At three months I think you're still rushing things a bit, but I can understand your concern, when you say that the pain is exactly the same as it was prior to surgery. I know even when I walked back to my room from the recovery room in Munich, I knew immediately that the pain had changed.

I think you need to do one thing at a time. Maybe leave matters from another couple of months, and then try facet joint injections, meanwhile try and get some more x-rays or scans done to try and see if there is any obvious physical problem.

It's amazingly difficult to say, because this surgery is extremely large, and loads of muscles and blood vessels and nerves have all been stretched and interfered with .

Were you given a exercise regime of stretches etc to do when you got home? If not there is the full regime Mr Lam's website which is here

http://www.orthopaedicspecialist.co.uk/images/Post-op%2...l%20_Apr%202006_.pdf

Please feel free to e-mail me if you think I might be able to help further
Best,
Alastair http://adrsupport.org/groupee_common...icon_smile.gif