leg and buttock pain after spinal fusion surgery
It is normal to have pain, numbness and discomfort after any surgery and invasive manipulation.
If you have recently undergone spinal fusion surgery or discectomy, it is normal to feel some pain in the lower back area as well as in the buttocks during the first days and weeks after the surgery, and it will gradually subside.
You should take seriously the presence of increasing pain and discomfort, paresthesia and numbness.
Because it can be the result of a serious complication such as compression of the fine fibers of the sciatic nerves.
If you have recently undergone spine surgery and are concerned about pain, discomfort, and numbness, stay with us until the end of this article to share the opinion of expert doctors with you.
Leg and hip pain after spinal fusion surgery
When you have spinal fusion surgery, it is completely normal to have pain, discomfort, and some sensory disturbances in your lower back, back, hips, and thighs.
You must be hospitalized and receive painkillers for the first few days, and in addition to these drugs, you must receive training in standard techniques to match your new body position, so that you can do your daily activities easily and without pain and discomfort by changing the way you stand, walk, sit and sleep.
You should not resume daily activities until the spine is fully fused together.
This process may take several weeks or longer.
Now you may have a question whether there are permanent restrictions after spinal fusion or not?
In response, it should be said that yes, many people will not have any restrictions on their activities after 6 to 8 months after surgery, but in some special circumstances, there will be permanent restrictions after spinal fusion for the patient.
For example, after the operation, the patient may be prohibited from running and intense jumping, or from performing any vigorous exercise that causes excessive bending of the spine.
Performing occupational therapy and specialized physical therapy after surgery will help you strengthen the muscles around your spine.
In this way, you will recover faster so that you can return to your daily life.
It is said that it takes 3 to 6 months for complete recovery.
Normally, after spinal fusion surgery that is performed without complications, pain, discomfort, sensory disturbances and paresthesia disappear after a certain time.
In other words, the pain and discomfort of the first days will gradually lose its intensity.
But the situation becomes abnormal when you have pain that is more than you can bear or you have pain that worsens during the days after the surgery instead of getting relief and recovery.
Pain that is accompanied by increasing sensory symptoms must be taken seriously.
The presence of increasing and progressive pain along with weakness of the muscles of the lower limbs, weakness of the muscles around the pelvis, thigh, and also your inability to control urine and stool are warning signs of a critical condition.
Dangerous symptoms and serious complications after spinal fusion surgery performed by an experienced specialist and subspecialist surgeon are almost rare.
In the following, we will talk more about the complications of spinal fusion surgery, as well as how spinal fusion is performed and the reasons that lead to this surgery.
Spinal fusion
A surgery performed by a spine specialist, through which your surgeon permanently fuses two or three vertebrae in your lumbar region together, is called lumbar spine fusion or spinal fusion.
What is the fusion of the lumbar vertebrae of the spine done by?
Your surgeon will use extra bone to fill in the space between the vertebrae in your back, so that there will be no space between them after healing.
Another name for this surgery is arthrodesis.
In which people is spine fusion used?
This surgery, which reduces the movements of the lumbar region in the spine, and is used in problems such as:
Spinal canal stenosis, protrusion and problems of intervertebral discs, fragile vertebrae that may damage the spinal cord, scoliosis, kyphosis, weakness of the vertebral column, lack of stability of the vertebral column due to infection, arthritis, spondylolisthesis or tumor in which the vertebrae slide into the spinal space and cause severe pain in the affected person.
In general, in people whose spine is injured due to infections of the vertebral body, tumors or arthritis, and suffer from pain due to the movements of the lumbar region, performing fusion relieves the pain of these people by reducing movement and flexibility in the lumbar spine region.
How is spinal fusion surgery performed?
This surgery is performed in the hospital and under anesthesia, so you will not notice the pain and discomfort of the procedure during the operation, and this surgery can last several hours.
Your doctor prepares the materials for bone grafting, this bone can be grafted bone tissue from your hip bone, or the surgeon uses artificial bone, or he/she has requested the appropriate tissue from the bone graft bank.
Depending on your condition, sometimes the surgeon prefers to add discectomy or removal of the problematic disc along with spinal fusion surgery.
In this way, your damaged disc will be removed and its place will be filled with your own natural bone or artificial bone, and thus the stability of your spine will be established.
What are the complications and risks of spinal fusion surgery?
This surgery, like all surgeries, can have complications. among the common complications of this surgery, we mention the following:
- Infections
- Blood clots
- Bleeding
- Wound healing problems caused by reactions to anesthetic drugs
- Heart attack during surgery
- Stroke during surgery
- Respiratory problems
The following complications, although rare, should be considered:
- An infection may occur in the vertebrae that have undergone fusion surgery.
- The wound that was created in your lumbar area during surgery and surgical incisions may suffer from infection and healing problems.
- During surgery, it is possible to damage the vertebral column as well as the nerve fibers in the back and lower back, thus causing weakness in your legs and sensory problems in your back, hips, thighs, legs and toes.
It is possible that due to the materials used by the surgeon for the fusion of the vertebrae, excessive pressure is applied on the nerve fibers that exit the spinal cord or the nerves adjacent to the spinal cord or the spinal cord itself, and in this way, some kind of peripheral nerve damage or Peripheral neuropathy or damage to the spinal cord itself or so-called myelopathy occurs.
The recent case meaning damage to the spinal cord or its adjacent nerve fibers due to the additional materials used to connect the vertebrae, as well as the damage of this surgery to the nerve fibers, both can cause you serious and important complications that results in having pain, numbness, discomfort and weakness in your back, pelvis, hips, thighs and other parts of your lower body.
Keep in mind that things like pain and discomfort and numbness that are more than usual and things that worsen over time instead of getting relief, or the so-called progressive and intensifying pain and numbness, should be considered as warning signs so be sure to notify your surgeon quickly.
In what cases is it necessary to go to the emergency room immediately?
The presence of one or more of the following symptoms indicates the presence of a blood clot in your body, which requires you to go to the emergency room as soon as possible and do not waste time.
These symptoms include:
- Sudden swelling of your knee or leg
- The presence of redness in the areas around the knee
- Pain in the leg muscles
- Shortness of breath, chest pain and sudden cough and rapid breathing
- Pain in the groin area
- Sudden pains in any part of the pelvis and lower pelvis
Also, the following symptoms can also be a sign of infection. You must go to the emergency room if you see any of the following symptoms:
- Fever and chills
- Redness, inflammation or pain at the edges of the wound
- Low blood pressure
- Blood discharge from around the edges of the wound
When should we take hip and leg pain and discomfort after spine fusion surgery seriously?
As we have explained in the previous sections, after the surgical procedure, it is completely normal for you to have mild to moderate pain and discomfort in your back, hips and lower limbs in the first days and weeks.
In other words, due to surgical manipulations, due to reactive inflammations, or due to reactive muscle spasms that occurred in the surgical area, these pains are considered normal and will gradually decrease.
- If you have a pain that suddenly appeared after a few days, or after a few days it became more and more annoying and did not go away after a few days, you should consider this pain seriously.
- Pains that are not relieved despite receiving painkillers should be reported to the doctor.
- Pains that are accompanied by numbness and weakness of the lower limbs should be reported to the doctor
- Pains that occur suddenly and are accompanied by swelling, redness and inflammation of the lower limbs.
- Pain that prevents you from continuing with your mobility aids and physical therapy
- Pain with pelvic girdle muscle weakness
- Pain accompanied by urinary incontinence
- Pain with fecal incontinence
- Pain with sudden cough
- Chest pain and palpitations, shortness of breath and rapid breathing.
Any of the above cases require you to see your doctor as soon as possible, and the last case that is sudden pain and cough, chest pain, heart palpitations and shortness of breath along with swelling, redness and inflammation of any part of the lower body means that you should go to the emergency room immediately.
Final word:
Spinal fusion surgery, during which the space between two or three lumbar vertebrae is filled with artificial bone or a part of your own bone and the vertebrae are connected, is usually recommended by surgeons for some injuries and problems of the lumbar spine
The existence of some complications during this surgery will be obvious and common like any other surgery, but if there is pain and discomfort and prolonged sensory disturbances after spinal fusion surgery, there is a possibility of some serious complications that must be considered and treated under the supervision of your surgeon.
But pain, discomfort and mild to moderate paresthesia in the first days and weeks are completely normal and will be resolved with time and without any worries.