I retired 9 years ago and shortly thereafter, I started getting sciatic pain in my right leg. Those of you who have had it know just how awful it can be with pain running down the back of your leg. Most of the time, sciatica is temporary but for me, this has never let up and gotten more and more painful over the years. For a long time, I got relief with yoga, swimming, walking and biking. But as time went on, only biking gave me relief because when I bent over to ride, it opened up the space between L4 and L5, releasing the sciatic nerve temporarily.
Cyclists tend to ignore pain because biking itself is painful and we just work through it. Also, as long as I could ride my bike, I could stand almost anything.
Three years ago I sought out the practice where Christy Mina, MD worked and asked to get an appointment with her. The practice suggested I see a pain management doctor first. An MRI did determine I had sciatica but the pain management doctor didn't think it was bad enough for surgery and he could treat it with nerve oblations, steroid blocks and NSADs. NSADs were out because they raised my BP. Nerve oblations worked for awhile as did steroid blocks. Finally, we realized there was not going to be any pain relief without narcotics or surgery. I chose the surgery.
I contacted Dr. Mina and it took 6 months to actually get everything in order to have the surgery done. By now L4 and L5 had completely fused. The cause? Arthritis. Pain was getting so bad that walking hurt and standing was impossible. Some times I couldn't even straighten by back and had to walk bent over (like an old lady).
On February 27, I arrived at he hospital at 3:30 pm. It was a long day of fasting but not as bad as a colonoscopy. I had the surgery around 8 pm. I didn't get to my room until almost 1 am. During the procedure there was a dural tear so instead of having to lie in bed for 12 hours I had to lie there for 24 hours. I could roll from side to side but it was difficult to do without help. There again, as bad as that sounds, it wasn't as bad as it was when I had vitrectomy eye surgery. With that I had to lie face down for 3 days!
I spent 3 nights in the hospital. They were very good to me and took very good care of me. During the night, I had to call someone in to help me change positions in bed about every hour. Harold was with me the whole time and really looked after me. The pain meds caused my BP to almost bottom out and I normally take meds for high BP. The meds also caused me to have elevated blood sugar which I've never had. This meant they were constantly pricking my fingers and giving me insulin. I felt like a pin cushion.
But I did survive the hospital stay and as long as don't have some further complications, this surgery was a success. All the sciatic pain is gone and I'm walking upright again. I'm happy to be home. Don't have much appetite but moving around really well with very little pain. I'm able to shower and take very short walks outside with a walker that I use to make sure I don't fall. Will probably graduate to a cane by the weekend.
