I had ACL surgery 6 weeks ago reconstructed with my patellar tendon. In addition I also experienced lateral meniscal fraying and a microfacture just above the meniscus. because of the microfracture, I was 6 weeks minimum no weight, so in that time i lost all muscle and rehab over the past few weeks has been mucho painful. im still on crutches, can barely lift my leg at 15 deg of my own strength, but the pain i cant handle is Not in my knee. its my foot. in fact, at night, the foot gets such excruciating pain that even after morphine, I cannot sleep more than a few hours before i awake. The pain includes a numbness and tingling that is not specific to bottom/top, but the entire foot (although worst near the toes). I have not slept in many days because of it and its starting to get depressing because 6 pills per night still leaves me Very tired throughout the day.
I have tried several different positions. my rehab lady tried narrowing it down with back exercises that attempted to reveal what nerve issues I may be having. I think it has little to do with the knee and more to do with my nerves, but still I have yet to figure this out. In the mean time i get little sleep with pains at night Much worse than the knee felt even at week 1.
your advice and past experiences would really help me out...for I need some sleep!
Screeli,
Your foot pain sounds identical to mine. Every night I can't sleep due to pain and throbbing in left foot and toes, worse in left big toe. I had spinal reconstructive surgery and I think a nerve is affected. Did you ever get relief and what did doctor find?
Apologies for not keeping in contact with my original post, but I have learned allot more about my condition, that may be of help to you. As a disclaimer, what I learned about the body and nervous system in this case had me realize that there is no simple equation in diagnosing the cause/solution, so patience tends to be the best element with the support of different medical opinions. it turns out, my orthopedic was lost all along given his knowledge was unique to the muscles and joint, not the nerves. the nerves are quite complex as I learned and the only opinion i received that mattered was from a neurologist. a long story short in my case, which symptoms included numbness and tingling, especially in the foot and big toe, was that I received nerve damage in my lower leg from surgery. interestingly enough, the nerves damaged were not immediately adjacent to the incision, which is what confused my orthopedics. in the beginning when they told me the surgery wasn't the cause, i figured they were simply covering their liability and trying to rid my curiosity. after researching the nerves of this area quite a bit, i eventually came to conclusion that they were right...the nerve damage was in fact self inflicted. they diagnosed me with something that i also researched, only to realize it was a "condition" that doctors placed on patients when they couldn't explain the immediate cause. the diagnosis was Parsonage-Turner Syndrome, a self imposed nerve damage by way of a weak immune system. basically the trauma of the injury was too much for my immune system to experience so the natural instinct of my body was to shut down. its kind of like when you get so nervous about something that your body and brain act a bit beyond your control. my lessons learned were to listen more to my body than the recommendations of others, even doctors on some cases. I believe the surgery procedure should have included a discussion of my medical history which would have revealed an immune disorder called encephalitis. an already weakened immune system places myself in much greater odds of rejecting the aftermath of surgery. given my surgery went awry even just to a small degree, my body simply didn't like the result, and in turn shut down my nervous system as a means to protect my body. its now been 13 months and I still have yet to fully recover. nerve deficiencies as i learned have huge mental and physical impacts. for example my muscles could not rebuild given the deficiencies that existed. luckily my nerves are still recovering as a recent EMG revealed, but the time frame for full recovery is still unknown. my recommendation, get a second opinion from someone who understands the nervous system as well as your medical history. your medical history i believe is the missing piece that your current doctors perhaps may not be taking more into consideration. even without having something like i did, your body may be more prone to rejecting specific trauma much like some people have higher degrees of specific allergies. i highly recommend seeing an independent neurologist who can study your EMG results and get to know your body. it worked for me. I didn't solve everything right away, but i learned the cause, learned to be patient, and had confidence that I would eventually heal. i also believe confidence plays a role in the healing of your nervous system. hope this helps!