hip & leg pain immediately after lumbar laminectomy

i have just had a laminectomy after 2 days i have started to get pain in my left hip & leg so painful pins & needles in my left foot can you please help me to understand why ?

Way to go, nel! I,too, felt that this person was EXTREMELY rude! They may be someone that is only 20 something years old and has already had 2 back surgeries, but this doesn't make them an expert on this subject. In fact, they have a LOT to learn about life! I actually became angry after I read their comments! I had lumbar laminectomy last Monday (15th of Oct)...thought I'd covered bases on everything concerning my surgery, but didn't factor in the PAIN that I would have AFTER the surgery...OUCH, OUCH, OUCH!!! But the pain is from the incision...The pain I WAS having (reason I had the surgery) is totally gone! Praise The Lord!

I agree with you. Not only was that person rude but she chided him for his spelling when she used the word "passed" for "past". People in glass houses should not throw stones! My doctor told me that all people feel pain in different ways and we all have different drug tolerances. I hope your pain is lessened and you find something that works for you. I am post knee replacement and 2 lumbar fusions so I know pain too.

Hi, i had lumbar disectomy 3 weeks ago on L4-L5 central prolapsed disc after about 3 years of suffering leg pain. Operation went well and only suffered surgical pain afterwards, didn't need pain relief after 4 days which I was surprised about. After a week I started light exercises and walking and on day 10 I started feeling sore on the left side at the top of my buttock, now just over 3 weeks after the op I have soreness in my left hip which is where my problem started only in the right hip. If I do certain exercises the hip clicks, I can only explain it as an aching bone feeling when you put 1 leg past the other. Don't know whether its early days or if I doing to much but it worries me that I have had the same feeling before the op. I have had pain in both legs because the disc was bulging in the middle so surgeon told me, I also had a steroid epidural 6 months before op but didn't do a thing for me.

Has anyone any suggestions why my hip is sore??

The issue is everyone feels pain differently and tolerates pain differently. We are not all the same when it comes to pain tolerance. Did you know that expression of pain is different even with different ethnicity? Maybe you could look this up when you get some spare time. There is a book I recently read called Caring for Patients from Different Cultures by Geri-Ann Galanti and it had some valuable information, in case you would like to educate yourself a little more. Your pain tolerance may be different than the person you were commenting to and you should be sensitive to that fact. For a person that is in pain I think it is frustrating to be in pain and want a solution as quickly as possible. I think one of the best things I have learned since I have had my chronic back issues is I have to be an advocator for my own health. Even a small issue no matter how small it is, is worth mentioning to my doctor. Of course a doctor needs to do their job but if a patient is not happy with the results it is always worth a second opinion.

I also had a lumbar laminectomy L4-5 on RIGHT side, and have been very happy with the results....but now 8 weeks out,  pain on  the LEFT side of my lower back is starting.   I am scared that I may now have slipped a disc on the left sided. 

Has anyone had this experience???  After all I have been through, I can't imagine starting all over again on the other side. 

Many thanks to all of you for your comments

 

Hmmmm, I see this is an old post but was researching for hip joint pain after laminectomy, due to what a friend of mine is going through right now. I don't know how old the person was who had the uncontrollable pain after surgery, but I'm willing to bet he took meds as prescribed. So let's get off his poor back. He was given those meds for a reason. When I was 20-30 I could handle pain way better than I can now. The older we are, the more chance of arthritis, bone spurs etc, that most 20 year olds don't have. I don't know where you get your stats about 1 in 250,000 get damaging nerve pain but I don't think that's quite correct. I know 2 people who had some mild lumbar problems - I say mild but both were getting epidurals ever 3 months as recommended by several doctors and both were rear-ended in a single car accident. Messed up both of their backs badly and one has had 2 surgeries, the other one is soon to have the second surgery. BOTH have nerve damage that causes pain - severe pain and the one that is waiting on the second surgery was told they have some permanent nerve damage. Soooo the odds of 2 people from the same family having nerve damage yet it being as rare as you say don't add up to me. Might be true of 20 year olds but as people age and have DDD the odds of nerve damage go up. Diabetes cause nerve damage that is painful, many things do. To heal properly from surgery, a patient needs pain relief - that makes it possible for them to walk as they should do, go through PT to gain their strength back. And by the way, dilaudid (you spelled it wrong) is not government heroin. It is synthetic morphine. It is available in pill form, how do I know? My mother was on it in the last 6 months of her life while she was dying from cancer. And please - before you are condescending enough to correct someone's spelling, make sure your own is correct. What you won't tell the doctor didn't make sense - but what you won't tell your doctor is on you. That doesn't mean that you've set rules for the rest of us. Smart patients tell doctors everything - and it is okay to say I think I have _______, because the following things are happening to me. You'll learn as you get older that some things that you get over and over again, your doctor will know you know what it is. Kind of like a woman being in labor, after the first time or 2, when she's a week past due and she gets contractions, she will likely tell her doctor or the hospital, I am in labor. Same thing with nerve pain - if the OP already had nerve damage, then s/he knows what nerve damage/nerve pain feels like. I'm sorry, but medical advice from a 20 year old isn't of value to me.

Who died and left you so full of medical information. I have had 7 spinal fusions and let me tell you something----not all doctors are honest! That's just a fact. The fact that he could not spell dilaudid is not important. We knew what he meant. Walk a mile in our shoes.....then you can comment. I live by that. Just to educate you a little. Nerve pain is very different that back pain. I know because I live with it. I thank God every day that I didn't wait until my surgeon told me what was going on. I went to a big university and underwent corrective surgery immediately. I'm sorry but you need to get educated yourself before you judge others.

I saw my orthopedic surgeon today and he said the same thing to me. This was my second surgery and the pain and numbness are still there. The first surgery was l5 on the right side. The second surgery was L4,L5,L5S1 on the left side. There is no way in hell that my pain is a mind thing. He told me that he bruised the nerve trying to decompress the disc.I will try an epidural shot and go from there.

I had a lumbar laminectomy on L4 and L5 less than 3 weeks ago and I am still in pain, my left hip and leg are in constant pain, I don't know if it is because it is too soon after the surgery and I need to give it more time to heal, but this sucker hurts like crazy. I take pain meds but I hate them , they make me feel numb and can't think straight.. I did get the dilaudid drip when I was recovering in the hospital , but I told the docs to take that off and I just took the pills . so I guess I have a high tolerance for pain, but this is a different kind of pain now, and I am taking my Norco 10's as prescribed .. but what I'm really wondering is does anybody know how long it takes for the after surgery pain to go away?.. it looks like mine is getting worst.. I tried walking for about 10 minutes today and it started to feel so bad, I had to sit down and take a nap to try and forget about the pain.. I don't know if the surgery was not a success as some say it is too soon to tell, but I am scared , because the pain is so sharp and strong.. my doc wants another MRI to see what the problem might be , but I will definitely will not have another surgery... no way...if anybody can please help? I would appreciate it.. ... thanks Lou....

I too was on a very high dose of pain drugs before a major lumbar laminectomy in '05. 120 mg. methadone and 32 mg. dilaudid. It took a whole team of pain management docs at a teaching hospital to figure out how they were going to manage my pain. It was horrible, my surgery was 14 hours! Yes, I had to tolerate much of the pain or die not being able to breath on my own. I was on a dilaudid pump for 7 days. I am still having major issues with my lumbar back. I stablized by '07 and was ti rated off the pain meds completely for 3 years. I have been back on narcotics once again and it is all degenerative problems with an entirely fused lumbar spine. Bone spurs and scar tissue. But I have been managed properly this time. I am on time-released morphine and short term 10 mg. percocet post op again and the surgery failed....another dropped foot with severe sciatica but this time at rest at least the pain meds are working. Never again, my pain doc now does drug holidays, quickly reduced my post op pain meds in 10 days by half! Tolerance to narcotics is a b***h! I know what you went through. I had surgery in '09, a big revision of hardware for my neck, went in on 4mg. dilaudid 4x and my post op pain was managed. Even this current surgery the post op was managed on a pump for 2 days but 51/2 days from surgery I developed complications with another dropped foot and severe sciatica and 3 months post op still hurting....but pain meds will work if you have a good doc that ti rates you down when you are stable. It works to half a pill every other day. Anything.

you cant tell anyone they are ignorant about how they feel. no one likes to be in pain. Dr's make mistakes but most will not own up to it because hospital lawyers and insurance pay to keep the lay person quiet. i know how he feels and i dont take pain meds like that if they dont work why take them. they damage other organs. you do a little more research, on the mistakes drs makes and tell each other the stories while laughing,

I am a physical medicine and pain management specialist. I am a veterinarian and most of my patients are dogs. I am 60 years old and have had an L4-L5 Laminectomy 4 days ago. My incision and back feel great but my hip and right leg are extremely painful. This is neurogenic pain from the compression of my herniated disk onto my spinal cord and I am hopeful that it will improve over time. That is my story but to address the gentleman that spoke of his maladaptive pain, there are times that a patient must be admitted into a hospital to be sedated for a 72 hour period on a mixture of medications to reset the pain pathways. I would recommend you begin seeing a pain management specialist and discuss this with them. This procedure doesn't always work but it doesn't seem like anything is working for you now so you have nothing to lose.

Thanks for shutting that guy down. Some know it all's like to kick people when they are already down. His information failed to add anything to the thread besides anxiety

Same story different details. I woke up from second laminectomy shaking violently. Said it's because my tolerance yo meds is high and must wait five minutes between doses of dilauded..?spelling. Took three yo get Tue convulsions yo stop. Kept yelling them something is wrong with my hips. And legs, but hips were seriously freaking me out. numb for a day. On and off from hips to ankles, feet still numb. I can feel a touch and move them, but they are cold and feel dead. After recovery they gave me 4 different pain killers to control pain level. Sent me home next day. Pain is uncontrolled now. Sometimes I can't walk at all. Most of my pain is my hips buttocks and legs, not just my core/incision pains. I need a walker and can only hold myself up for a minute without it. I have more wrong after surgery. Pain coming from that exceeds by far the average laminectomy pain. I'm afraid, I only have partial function and movement from my hips down. Will this go away as my core heals and gets strong enough to hold my weight again? I feel like my bones, nerves, and muscles from hips down are dying.