Open decompression - no recovery

[Geoff]

Hi - I am new to the forum. It looks amazingly helpful. I'd be very grateful for any comment or advice on my situation.

I had an open decompression operation of L4/5 on February 1st and was told that I might recover in 6-8 weeks. It is now over 11 weeks, and I am no better than I was before the operation. My condition is severe neurogenic claudication, making it difficult for me to walk or stand up straight. During the first 6 weeks I did make some progress, and reached a point where I could walk very slowly for about 15 minutes, carrying rather than using my walking stick, and I could stand upright for some of the time, especially in the mornings.

But from Tuesday 16th March, I suddenly deteriorated, and almost had to start from scratch again. On that night I also had agonising pain in my right hip, followed by numbness. There were a few things I did on that day which could have triggered this change: on the Monday 15th, I had acupunture for pain in my left leg - I also drove for the first time that day. On Tuesday I sat at my computer for quite a while, and also had a hot bath. Maybe one of these things caused the change.

My doctor also suspected that I might have a hip problem which was preventing my recovery - and an X-ray did indeed reveal osteo-arthritis on both sides, worst on the left. But nothing extraordinary for a 58 year old, who for years was a regular jogger (how I regret that now!).

One of my big problems in all this is the lack of aftercare advice I have received from the NHS (National Health Service) here in the UK. (I'm going to make a separate post for UK people on this.) I have not seen my surgeon since the operation - my next appointment is two weeks today. His advice is also not to have physiotherapy for three months from the operation. This means I just don't know what is best for me. Should I try to walk as much as possible? Am I doing the right exercises etc etc?

Fellow sufferers, I don't need to dwell on how awful all this has been. Many of you have even worse problems. Ten months ago I was fit and active: walking, cycling, salsa dancing, going to the gym. Now I am virtually housebound, on sick leave from work, and unable to do all those outdoor things I used to love doing with my 12 year old son!