has anyone had a repeat discectomy?

[Lily316]

Hi everyone

Hoping I will find people who understand here..

I had a L4/5 discectomy in 2016 and all had been fine since, in feb this year I couldn’t stand up one morning, turns out it has come back worse than before, this time the nerve pain in my leg, ankle and foot is awful. I am on very high dose morphine, found gabapentin, pregabalin didn’t help at all. Am unable to take amitriptyline etc. I also use CBD oil and a tens machine. Some days are still really bad pain wise, due to have my operation in January.

has anyone had a repeat discectomy and had success with nerve pain reduction?

also does anyone else have any suggestions to help with pain relief? I’m slowly weaning my morphine down also.

I’m finding it all massively stressful, I have a 3 year old, thankfully my work allowed me to work from home for now. Some days I’m very tearful when the pain is worse.

Thanks for reading, sorry it’s a bit long!

X

[Betsy50]

Hi lily316 so sorry to hear your in so much pain. I had a disectomy on L5 in 1999 but after 2 years it came back with a vengeance sciatica back pain the lot. I'm actually speaking to my Painmanagement consultant today as I had a fall in January and hirt my hip and back so getting mri results on back should be interesting. I also weaned off morphine after 6 years at 40mg it was hard but I done it but unfortunately due to the injury I'm back on 5mg morphine but a patch this time instead of tablets and it seems to have calmed the sciatica down. Try some stretching exercises I know it's not easy when your in so much pain but give it a go. Hope this helps. Take care betsy50