Hi newby here ADR L4/5 6/12/13

[Nmel]

Hi Folks, I am new to this forum. I am an Aussie, 1 week today post-op ADR l4/5. My misery started 6 years ago when I fell off my horse and landed on my back on a rock wall. I dislocated both vertebrae adjacent to the 4/5 disc and spent three months in bed on narcotics. Over the following five years my condition degenerated up to the point last year when I could not survive other than on big doses of narcotics. I have tried everything - nothing worked (not even the narcs) Being a busy mother of four and knowing I had to get my life back (I'm 37) I made the decision to go ahead and have ADR. Doctors attitudes in Australia are a bit of a mixed bag - some are dead against it, some swear by it (for people like me who have a dead disc but no other problems). My doc has been doing them for a while but stopped using the old generation discs a while ago and has been using the m6 on liability insurance and private paying customers as not approved by health funds here. I was ready to fork out and voila the EP-ESP was approved literally days before my surgery. Anyways my bank account is $9000 happier and I am feeling pretty good but I do have a couple of questions. I wish I had found this site before my surgery. Anyway hopefully someone who has had lumbar ADR can a answer the following:
1. Is it normal to look six months pregnant a week out from surgery? I am so swollen it's not funny.
2. I woke up with zero pain in my back but over the last few days I am getting twinges if I move too sudden and what feels like muscle pain around the implant, is that normal?

I should add that when they opened me up the disc was so bad and the segment so unstable the doc put in the larger disc which he says increased the disk space by a whole centimetre. He came very close to doing a fusion because of the instability but said the bigger disc looked sound and he knew I was really against fusion (one day I would like to ride again - just gentle and only on sand)

[Harrison]

Nicola, so sorry for the late reply! Are you doing any better? Is the swelling going down?!

[Nmel]

Hi,
Thanks for the response. Swelling is all gone, back is feeling great but now I have a new symptom which I think is really weird, I would love to know if anyone has ever experienced this. I am basically pain free all day (unless I overdo the walking and get a bit achey), I go to bed fine and then I wake up around three am with excruciating pain in my left leg. It goes from my buttock right down into my ankles and feels most intense around my knee and ankle joints. The doctors think it might be sciatic pain which I never had before, I only ever had referred facet pain in my leg. They think the sciatica could be either from the distraction of my spine (they added a centimetre overall) or from the muscle in my buttock which was not being used much before as I walked with a strange limp for a long time. They want me to take lyrica and Valium, neither of which appeal much. What I think is weird is that the pain is only there early in the morning after I have been sleeping. Once I get up and walk around for a bit it goes away. Has anyone ever had this before? Has anyone taken lyrica? Are the side effects as bad as they sound? Too many questions and doctors who know nothing. My surgeon has gone away for Christmas and none of the other neuros do this surgery so they won't even look at me.

[Harrison]

Yes, these symptoms have occurred post operatively in patients. It's not the norm, but it happens. It happened to me, but in my case:

- I had Lyme disease in the 90s;
- got mycoplasma pneumoniae during or after surgery.

Both went undiagnosed and untreated. So I got worse n worse. See this link from my documentary site.

This hopefully will not apply to you. But if things get worse and weirder, consider my case which took hundreds of hours of my own detective work -- and longer to resolve.

Many bacterial and parasitic infections can settle into the lower extremeties, especially in the feet. Any retired GP will tell you this.

Quick checklist for you:

1. Are you taking NSAIDs and natural anti-inflammatories?
2. Did you make drastic improvements in your diet? Organic? Juicing? No GMOs? No gluten?
3. Are you doing proper detoxification? Massage? Sauna?
4. Doing good stretching, walking?
5. How's your bloodwork? Is the testing broad and deep? Did you get copies of your reports?
6. Get copies of your medical/OR records?

I have more, but I have to go to bed! Ga night.