Day of Fusion. ALIF Level L4L5 L5S1 Just getting to room.

I am arriving to my room at Cedar Sinai and very groggy and very much in pain still. My mother and husband are with me..and although I am starved from 9p the night before they go on and on about how good the food is here...lol. My surgery seemed to have been a success, operatively.
The pain is mostly at incision site, in the from, and on my insides. However, the only thing that has me concerned right now is that I came in this morning with right hip, leg, thigh and foot pain...and woke up with it still there. Hope its still in healing mode. Pain is a bear trying to control due to the fact of my pain levels over the past three years. But they are trying and doing a fantastic job at it.

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People & Blogs

Tags:

• fusion
• back surgery
• chronic pain
• spine
• stimulator
• narcotics
• hospital
• cedar sinai

[lifeasalina]

@SCMalone I am so deeply sorry to hear about what you have had to go through. There is no excuse for that. How old are you? Feel free to inbox me if you rather not write on the main page. Have you been to see any other surgeons since 2004? You are not alone. And I know how you feel. A year ago, I felt just as helpless as you sound. Inbox me if you want to talk about this further, I'd love to help you out any way I can.

[curlytop2001]

I am 28 and I have to have a spinal fusion this month because I have isthmic spondlothesis. After seeing this I am terrified!!

[s33dless1134]

how bad is the pain? cuz im gettin my l5-s1 next month on the 17th so not really lookin forward 2 it but my backs been killin me for yrs now and not gettin any better. no leg pain or anything tho just a lot of lower back pain that wont go away so my doc said i should get surgery since nothing else is helpin. how would u rate the pain tho and everything after?

[SCMalone]

In 2004, I under went an ALIF with stabilization in New Jersey, resulting in complication. What had happened was a pedicle screw was "miss-measured" and pierced the vertebra at L5 hitting the sciatic nerve root. They removed the screw with an additional 2 hours during this procedure. 6 days later, they did a laminectomy at L5 in-order to relive inflammation caused by the "complication."

I live in constant pain, leaving me 100% disabled and in complete distress for the rest of my life.

[peacepipedreams]

would you reply to my email only. thank you. it is dreamingtree777@yahoo.com, thanks for your time and hope you are doing great,

kristina in tennessee

[peacepipedreams]

i am only days away for alif fusion surgery and wanted to thank you for making the videos. they have really helped me alot to be more prepared. i have a question that I have not asked my doctors because I assume they will talk to me about it when I go in for my surgery but I was wondering something. do the surgeons have to take out intestines to get to spine to do the work needed. i guess I should know this but the more I stopped to think about it the more I get confused. would you help me out?

[jhartist123]

Then I had to have 2 more surgeries to fix the problem but the damage was done and I was told I might have to be in that #10 level of pain and peralisis forvthe rest of my life. Now 5 years later unable to do thing I so desperately want to do. PLEASE don't have this surgery just start useing drugs because chances are that's were you'll end up anyway

[jhartist123]

Spinal fusion surgery made me completely disabled. My Dr. Put a screw in crooked and didn't see it in the x-ray or he didn't bother to do an x-Ray. And the crooked screw broke the vertabre leaveing needle like pieces of bone punctureing the nerves.It took him 6 days to believe I was crying out in a constant unbarable pain because something was wrong. I was looseing feeling in my legs. Needless to say I had a mental breakdown.

[123dietdrpepper]

You have a long recovery ahead of you but remember it gets a little better each day. The key is to listen to your body and if you are having a rough day, to park yourself on the couch/recliner. Better to take small steps than to try and rush things and have a setback. TOMORROW WILL BE BETTER