"Recovery" from surgery

As many people who have had discectomies experience, I had an immediate reduction in pain after the surgery.  They sent me home with narcotic pain medication, which I did not need at all since the post operative pain and the pain from the incision was nothing compared to the pain I had been in before the surgery.  This is due to the nerve being decompressed during the procedure.  I was quite hopeful, but I knew I had to take it easy and be very diligent about giving my disc time to heal over since I was now at a greater risk of re-herniation due to the hole in the back of my disc they had to make to remove the protruding disc material.  One wrong move could cause more disc material to come out of the disc and re-compress the nerves again.  It is definitely a situation in which feeling better does not necessarily mean you are better.

After getting home, my mom stayed with me for about a week at my house to help out, which I greatly appreciated.  I would spend my time lying with a pillow under my legs and getting up every hour or so to pace around my house for about 10-15minutes.  One of the risks of the surgery is that scar tissue can form around the nerves and cause pain.  Scar tissue is also very hard to remove and walking helps keep the nerve mobile and prevents scar tissue from adhering to the nerve itself.  So I had a very set schedule of walking which I stuck to diligently.  I also was not allowed to lift anything over 8lbs for the first 3-4weeks.  To put this in perspective, a gallon of milk is about 8lbs.  Also, no bending, no twisting, and only limited sitting were allowed.  So I was pretty much just watching movies, walking, tv, walking, playing some wii, and more walking.  My friends and family were awesome and came over to visit and brought me movies and food and just hung out.

After two weeks, my mom went back home and I returned to working.  I work from home and could do my job while continuing my recovery routine and laying on my back when I wasn't walking.  The doctor had warned that sitting could take a while to be comfortable again.  It was a pretty long road, and I felt couped up and stir crazy.  Unfortunately, the winter was a particularly bad one, so it was even difficult to go outside and walk due to all the ice on all of the sidewalks.  Every day felt like a week, but I was on a mission to make sure my disc healed properly, so I stuck to my routine.  Spinal discs do not have a direct blood supply and therefore get their nutrients kind of like a sponge by taking them from the surrounding fluids.  Walking gently compresses and decompresses the disc and this pumping action facilitates the transport of nutrients into the disc.  All the doctors said, walking was probably the best thing I could do.  I took glucosamine with MSM along with a hyaluronic acid and collagen supplement and drank lots of water and stuck to a good diet.  While there is some research to support that those supplements help with joint problems, and it is known that those compounds are all present in the disc material themselves, there is no hard evidence that they  make a big difference.  I thought that if there was even a chance that they would help, it would be worth the cost.  I would take them a few hours before walking along with a large glass of water in hopes that they would be at their maximum concentration in my bloodstream when I would be walking and therefore get into my disc.  I didn't know any of this for sure and was more of a theory, but based on everything I had been told, it sounded plausible.

After a solid month of this routine, and nearly going out of my mind at times being so restricted in what I could do, after my 4 week follow up with my doctor, I started a month of physical therapy.  This was the 3rd physical therapy location I had tried since the start of my ordeal.  I went twice a week and we basically just worked on gentle core strengthening exercises that I could do without bending my spine too much, along with some time on the arm bike, the recumbent bike, and some leg work on the Pilates machine.  We gradually increased the exercises, but they were still pretty tame.  I did the exercises they gave me as homework everyday diligently anyway.  If it even had a chance of helping, I was going to do it.  It felt great to be able to do at least something half way physical.  I was still having difficulty sitting for very long, which was similar to before the surgery, but the surgeon had said this could take time to come back.  I still had to lay down all day while I worked and I could only really sit for about 45mins without starting to get some pain.  I would stop immediately when I felt something since I did not want to squish the disc back apart and impede its healing.

I completed about a month of physical therapy and was feeling better, and more confident in my movements.
I really wanted to get back into some regular routine of working out so I came up with a set of moves that was comprised of all exercises that my physical therapist had given me and the addition of pushups and pullups.  I had some concerns about doing pullups so I asked the physical therapist who said it would be fine as long as my surgeon said it was fine.  I asked my surgeon and he said they would be fine and would even probably be good to help take some of the load off of the disc.  This disc should be healed enough by now.

So at nearly 3 months post surgery, and being done with physical therapy, my surgeon said he didn't need to see me back for anymore follow ups unless I had problems, but to remember that I was still at higher risk for re-herniation for a bit longer so not to do anything too crazy, but I should have been through the riskiest part.

So I continued with my homemade routine of PT exercises and pushups and pullups about 2-3 times per week for 3.5 weeks.  I tried going for a few short jogs for the first time in over a year and they felt ok.  I would ease into anything new I tried.  I had no intention of doing anything that would remotely endanger my disc (like picking up a weight) until at least 6 months out.  I was still having some difficulty sitting, and would get soreness after about 1.5 hours.  I also noticed if I sat for too long, I would be sore for a day or two after.  I was still laying down all day for work and still had to basically build my life around not sitting.  The not sitting part was pretty tough.  Long car rides were still out of the question.  You don't really realize how much you sit during a day until you can't do it.  I had been hoping that this would have been better by now.

Then at the end of May, nearly 4 months after my surgery, after finishing one of my exercise sessions of PT exercises, pushup and pullups,  I laid down on the floor for a few minutes after doing the workout.  I got up and was walking across the living room to my kitchen and something happened in my back.  I had an extremely sharp pain and intense muscle spasms.  My initial thought, was "Oh my god, what just happened?"  Nothing felt wrong when I had been doing my exercises.  I walked into the kitchen and was hit with another round of muscle spasms.  I grabbed an ice pack and went back into the living room and laid on the floor.  My heart started racing, what was going on?  The only time I had ever had muscle spasms before was when I herniated my disc nearly 14 months earlier.  After about 30mins on the floor, I slowly tried to get back up and was hit with another round of spasms and pain.  I just laid on the floor the rest of the night and knew I had to call my surgeon the next day.  I had more spasms and pain when I got up to go to bed.  I called the next day and luckily there had been a cancellation so I could get in that morning.