[Artificial Disc Replacement / Lumbar] CD- Freedom L4/L5 at Texas Back Institute

[scduggan]

Hello Everyone!

Cindylou and Runagain, thank you so much for your post. Cindylou, I am sorry for your loss. I know you are probably missing your friend dearly. I am so glad you could be with her.

I am not really sure where to start. Next week marks my nine-month post op......still on dumb ole Lortab. That is the bad news. The good news is I have whittled my dose down to (2) 7.5mg pills per day. Sometimes I take a little more and sometimes I take a little less. I am sure I have a pretty strong tolerance for it at this point but it does take the edge off. The evenings still seem to bring the worst of the LBP. I remain faithful to my workouts and my PT stretches and exercises. A couple of times I have let life get in the way and gotten out of the habit of doing them. I tell my husband to NOT LET ME COMPLAIN if I am not going to do the work (PT). The stretches and low back/hip exercises are not just a suggestion. They are mandatory.

Runagain, you have no idea how much comfort I gain from your comment about the energy deficit. Likewise, Cindylou, I seem to need to be told over and over that the roller coaster ride just goes with the territory. I have lots of times with relatively no back pain. I am grateful for these times and praying for more and more of them.

I have one problem still remaining that is kind of frustrating. All along I have had more hip issues than low back. Well, my left hip is almost always the culprit. While I was still in PT my therapist could work on it and give me a lot of relief from the extreme tightness. I have been discharged from PT and my left hip is just ridiculous. Last night my husband was trying to help me work out some of the tightness. It would just about shoot me off the bed with the slightest touch. It is like a brick wall with pain radiating around to my hip-bone. I have decided to get an injection in my SI joint. It is not for two weeks and I will make it through. I am keeping my fingers crossed because I think it might REALLY help. I know a lot of the members on this forum have had SI issues and injections. Any wisdom would be appreciated.

Except for the above paragraph I am doing well. I just read a post from Kathy (Kbear) about how she was a slow healer. I am a slow healer also. Surely we slow healers are at least gaining some impressive patience, right?

Thanks for reading. If anyone has questions I am happy to help.
CD

[claudia]

I had an SI joint injection recently and it took away most of my leg pain. I had no idea that the SI joint could cause leg pain as none of the 3 spine surgeons I had consulted even mentioned it. It only lasted for two weeks before it was back. I am now seeing a physiatrist who is doing prolotherapy. So far I have had 3 sessions and feel like it has helped my pain maybe 30%. The doctor recomended at least 6 and says I should continue to improve with each one.

[KBear]

CD- Sounds like you are right on track. I know there are some that are better amazingly fast, but there are a lot of us that take longer to heal completely. I kept reminding myself of Terry who said it took him all of 2 years for complete relief. Since then it seems like a lot of us continue improving through the 2 year mark. It's hard because you wait so long for surgery and you are so ready to be better. Then you have surgery and in some cases you are initially in more pain for awhile, then you take months or years to heal. We all want to be better last week and patience while in pain is not easy. I always say that I refuse to pray for patience, because you get it by having to be it- LOL Hope the SI injection gives you relief from the hip pain. Take care, Kathy