spasms in feet

[salamander160]

Hi, I recently had surgery on my feet, on my left foot they removed all my toes, a trans metatarcsal amputation and they removed the little toe on my right foot. I am in a wheelchair and have little mobility. I found out last year that i was diagnosed with cerebral palsy in 1985 but didn't know. Ok i am getting painful spasms in the bottoms of my feet, it is very painful, it is as if my toes are still there, why am I getting these spasms and how can I control them, they are very unpleasant. i was getting them before the surgery but have had them several times recently.

[Bevvy]

Hi. Sorry to hear about your situation. Nerve pain can be difficult to treat. Following emergency spinal operation in December I also have nerve pain. Basically the nerves in my back that were crushed haven’t realised they aren’t being crushed anymore. This may improve but doctors have no idea if/when.

Similarly in your case your body hasn’t yet recognised that you have has some toes amputated. This is very common with amputation.

As you maybe aware in the past couple of days there have been findings that prescribing medication used for depression or epilepsy is on the whole is waste of time, because has little effect. However they did acknowledge one medication that can be helpful. That is Duloxetine which I take. I have found it really helpful with my pain. I am on maximum dose but found even with lowest dose it helped.

Hope you find something that can help you.

[salamander160 in reply to Bevvy]

Hi Bevvy, thank you for responding, I understand about the nerves and how they work sort of but it doesn't change the fact that the pain is hard to deal with. I was on duloxatine until last year, I still have loads of it here but had to stop taking it because it made me more depressed. I am on pregaboline, it helps but isn't strong enough at times. So are the spasms the nerves? That pain can be really unpleasant.

[cyberbarn]

It could be that you have what is known as phantom limp pain. The brain may be misunderstanding what is going on, and is sending back signals to your conscious brain (all initial pain processing is done in the unconscious brain) and the rest of the body.

Have you talked to your surgeon about it yet? They should be able to refer you to the pain clinic to try to retain your brain.

Pain is horrible at the best of time, but even harder to sort out when there are amputatons involved. I hope you can get some relief and compassionate support soon.

[salamander160 in reply to cyberbarn]

Hi, Yes, I phoned the hospital yesterday or the day before even to speak to the consultant, I asked for a referral to the pain clinic, I also phoned my gp to discuss the pain meds but they didn't get back to me. It is very hard at times to get any kind of response. I will just have to keep taking the oramorph or codeine, there is little else I can do. My foot is particularly sore this morning.

[Mitch48]

Hi there,

I’ve heard of Phantom Limb pain before with having chats with other pain clinic patients & they take pretty much the same as I’ve been prescribed for cervical & lumbar spinal injuries - Gabapentin or Pregabalin, Naproxen, Duloxetine and Amitriptyline. Often combined with an opioid, codeine, tramadol or Oramorph. I have a stronger drug Fentanyl in patch form .

The last spinal surgery I had was an emergency and had a large amount of rods & screws to combat an unstable spine due to Impending Cauda Equina & Spondylolisthesis involving two vertebrae.

To cut a long story short, the surgery was 2 years ago and I’m still getting what I call “electric shock” type pain. My Neurosurgeon said that the nerves L3/4 & L4/5 are still irritated post surgery but didn’t give me any idea when the pains would dissipate. They are nothing like the more regular nerve pain that travels down the nerve path, these are evil as this is the worst pain that I have ever felt from my injuries. They come without warning, burn like crazy & affect anywhere from my legs to my feet. I’m yet to speak to my Neurologist again regarding my injuries but am certainly interested in how long they will last for. I read online that this pain is purely from the nerves as they regrow after being damaged whilst being impinged etc.

What is your pain like?

Kind Regadds

Mitch.

[salamander160 in reply to Mitch48]

Hi, I am sorry to hear about your pain, obviously you've been through much more than I have, just having toes removed but the pain is like a burning, spasm on the base of my feet, the actual wound is healing nicely, it is the problems we have to deal with after surgery. I had my little toe removed on my right foot because it was pretty useless, curled up and rubbed all the time, it spasms too. My toes were removed on my left foot because of the burn, I burnt my foot 3 years ago and it wasn't healing. The surgeon questioned why they didn't refer me for surgery before now, not leave it 3 years. The stump hurts too, I can still feel my toes most of the time.

[Mitch48 in reply to salamander160]

Hi there, thank you for your reply.

The nerves in your feet were no doubt damaged with burning them & as you say, the wound/s didn’t heal properly.

I would have thought that you’d have been prescribed more meds to help with your neural problems.

I also have extremely painful muscle spasms affecting most of my body and drink some tonic water or bitter lemon that both contain quinine to help with them, I also take a magnesium supplement to help as well, hopeful both of these could help you too.

Keep us posted on your recovery & treatment please.

Kind Regards,

Mitch