Post op bummer

[HGD24]

I had gone 9 days with relatively little pain and was feeling great about my recovery! My husband's aunt stopped in for a surprise visit yesterday and stayed for 2 and 1/2 hours. After she left, I napped for a little over an hour. We had dinner plans with friends and I wanted to rest. Our friends arrived and I got dressed (including my brace, which I haven't been wearing much, and doc doesn't mind) and we went to a local pizza restaurant. In all, I spent 3 hours sitting or standing for dinner. By the time the check came, I was having a major pain in my upper back (shoulder/thorocotomy area) and had a horrible ride home. I immediately got into bed to relax and then spent another 1/2 hour later last night walking around the house. This morning, I feel terrible and am so discouraged by it. I feel that at 5 weeks post op, I should be able to sit and stand for 3 hours and not have this much pain afterwards. I don't know if it was the car ride, the brace or a combination of it all. Any thoughts from those of you who have gone through this already???? Thanks!

[scoliosis-mom]

Hi Heidi,

Sorry to hear about your pain.

I noticed you mentioned pain in the shoulder area.

My daughter's thoracic curve was about 64 degrees and she had anterior/posterior spinal fusion at age 16 two years ago.

She had shoulder pain the first year as well as some upper back pain. The orthopedic surgeon explained to us that the muscles have a very long memory and most of the pain was from the muscles. This is pretty elementary in explanation, but he told us that it took 16 years for the muscles to move into that position and the surgery moved them back in 12 hours.

My daughter did have one shoulder higher than the other and it was slowly adjusting over about 1 year after surgery. In fact, I could still see the shoulders slowly leveling out after 1 year.

Not sure if this is what you are experiencing, but it was just a thought.

Most of her pain in the first few months was in the shoulders and upper back.

Take care,

Susan

[LindaRacine]

Hi Heidi...

Your experience is a relatively common one. When you start feeling good, you overdo it, and really pay the next day. I suspect that if you take it easy today and tomorrow, you'll be feeling better soon.

By the way, at 5 weeks post-op, I was still spending much of the day in bed.

Regards,
Linda

[Theresa]

Heidi,

I went to my daughter's graduation from law school at 4 weeks post-op. I only stayed for half of it and had to leave. Went home and laid down for about 3 hours. When everyone else got back we went to dinner. I thought I was feeling much better, I only lasted about 1/2 hour at the restaurant and had to go lay down in the van till my dinner came. Went back in to eat a few bites of dinner and went back out to lay down again. Like Linda said, you feel good and then you overdo and your back off your feet for a few days. At 11 months post-op if I overdo now at least I don't have to go to bed for a few days. Don't push it, it's a very long slow road to full recovery. You'll have quite a few days of one step forward two steps back. In the beginning I was very frustrated with not being able to do more, but once I realized I needed to take it easy (if I accomplished one thing a day, I did great!) things got alot better. Take Care.

[blairf83]

Definitely not uncommon.
I'd overdo a little bit, and pay for it for days after for the first couple of months. And that was without having a thoracotomy... 5 weeks is definitely not very far post op, even if it does probably feel like an eternity...
Just take it easy for a bit and you'll feel better soon... Its so tough to not overdo. I know I did it all the time.

[HGD24]

Thanks for your responses so far. I'm sure that you're all right and that I just overdo myself by going out of the house for 3 hours. I just felt soooo good and felt like after a week of feeling good, I could give it a try. At least I know better now :o

I am a very impatient and stubborn person to begin with, so this whole process has been pretty difficult for me to cope with. I want everything to be back to normal asap! I know that can't happen, but every now and then I guess I try to hard and end up paying for it for a few days. The good news is that the pain is better today, but still not as good as it was a week ago.

On average, I'm spending 5-6 hours a day up and around the house and am trying to extend that by an hour each week. Looks like I'll have to back off of the trips out to eat, etc for a while though.

Thanks again everyone! It's so great to have this board and to have all of you to look to in times like this. You make me feel like the things I'm going through aren't so weird or trivial!

[blairf83]

He He... I know exactly where you're coming from... Stubborn and impatient describes me to a T! I was really active before my surgery, so didn't lose a whole lot in strength, and then started working out a little bit at about 2 weeks home from the hospital (riding exercise bike)... I know I pushed myself way too hard too soon and probably slowed my recovery a good bit in several instances. It's so hard not to do it. You have these great results from your op. You look better, and you're finally starting to feel better, and so you want to see just how much it is that you *can* do...
You sound like you're doing fantastically well though! I know I wasn't up and around for 5 or 6 hours a day at this point...

[Theresa]

Hey Heidi,

I just noticed that you are from Maine. My son will be going to work at a boy's camp near Portland this summer. The camp is called Camp Wildwood. Have you heard of it? How is the weather up there from June to August? Is it rainy or dry? As you can see we're from Houston and use to 90 deg+ and 90% humidity during July through September. He's been wondering what the weather will be like. Any info would be great.

[HGD24]

Theresa,
I haven't heard of Camp Wildwood, but I know that there are a ton of great summer camps in the area. The weather here in Maine is very tough to predict. We have a saying, "If you don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes....it'll change!" I've celebrated 4th of July in jeans and a light jacket and yet got married in May on a beautiful 75-80 degree day. Your son should definitely pack for weather ranging from 50 to 95 degrees. We don't have the humidity like Houston does (been there and experienced it myself...WOW!), unless it's a particularly rainy season which is rare. Also, the weather is different depending on how close or far from the ocean you are. Usually cooler near the coast and warmer inland.

If you'd like to, feel free to contact me at HGD24@netscape.net and I can hopefully help you out some more with more info on the area as I live near Portland.

[spincon58]

Hi,
Oh yea!! It's called the rollar coster....In Dr. Micheal Nuewirth book there is a section on the ups and downs of pain..Its very very common to feel that way...so to know that type of pain is normal is good news..soon you will only have up feeling days...good luck on your recovery!!!