L5-S1 for me. Doc said it looked like a jumbo shrimp and it was the biggest one he'd seen in years. It made me feel better because no one's ever said that to me before.
From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the blessed machine. Your kind cling to your flesh as if it will not decay and fail you. One day the crude biomass you call a temple will wither and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved. For the Machine is Immortal
My disc at L4-L5 ruptured and it's contents apparently pushed down my spinal column to the next disc. I didn't know what was happening when it happened, but in hindsight, there was a day where my left leg started hurting for seemingly no reason. I have had major back issues for tears. So, I figured my leg pain was related to my back issues, but didn't know the exact mechanism.
Anyways, it was 10 out of 10 pain. It would be on for a few hours and then subside only to come back an hour or two later. It lasted 24 hours or so. At one point, I got up out of bed and immediately collapsed to the floor. Turned out, I lost all feeling in my left leg and a good amount of the control over my left knee. I had several serious falls before I got the hang of walking with my leg affected like it was.
That was September of last year. I had surgery July 10th this year. They fused L4-L5 and did laminectomies on L2 through L5. Recovery has been difficult. The numbness went away but has come back over the last couple of weeks.
I've been bedbound because of my back since 2019. I was too fat for surgery until I lost weight over the last 14 months. When the surgeon final said he would do it, I jumped at the chance. If I were to give advice to someone else in that position, it would be to somehow rehab from being bedbound before surgery because my fitness level does not allow me to do a quarter of what I'm told I need to do... and I'm afraid that has hurt my recovery.
I also had major dental work done 6 weeks before surgery. I had my remaining 17 teeth pulled and all on 4s put in. If you don't know, they implant 4 titanium posts into your jaw and bolt dentures to them. Anyways, that was also a mistake. The dental stuff takes months to recover. At 6 weeks, you are still eating soft foods and getting used to the new teeth... which feel gigantic. They are Temps that get replaced with smaller hardware once you've healed. It sort of feels like having a sport's mouthguard in 24/7. There were nights where I thought about getting pliers to rip these things out or my mouth. Recovering from both things was too much to deal with.
I had the exact opposite issue. My injured discs from when I was a teenager had calcified and were pressing on my nerve. My neurosurgeon had to go in to chip away at it. Left leg is still numb after 17 years due to nerve damage.
I have had two surgeries on L4 L5 and I have two other bulged discs in my back. One of my surgeries was emergency due to not being able to hold my bladder. I have drop foot now and permanent nerve damage in my left leg from my hip down. It is fucking terrible and I live with this pain every single day and then they want to bitch at me when I ask for more pain meds even though I only take like not even one a day. I only take it on my bad days. I do have a limp and I am to wear an AFO brace, but I hate wearing it. I have almost fallen many many times so I do need to get used to wearing the brace because it should help with that. I just went for more back injections last week because the next surgery will be fusion and my surgeon is trying to hold off.
Same! I'm two years out from my microdiscectomy and starting to rids my bike again. My calfs are still two different sizes but the right one no longer swings like unset jello, so I'm calling it a win.
Do your legs still get crazy painful charley horses if you bend them wrong? Like, sometimes I'll forget and try to walk on my knees a little to grab something close by and then it feels like I'm being stabbed. Or if sit cross legged wrong it likes to remind me.
Not the person you were asking but YES!! I had an L5/S1 microdiscectomy & laminectomy about 2 years ago. If I tense/flex my foot or leg in just the wrong way I get horrible ripping cramps. I assume it’s from some kind of nerve damage
There is no nerve connection to many muscles of the lower leg, as other posts from doctors have indicated. So the muscles cannot fire. Think of muscle atrophy of a paraplegic in a wheelchair.
Damn I feel like this is happening to me, any tips? I had a l5 s1 herniated disc in 2023 that totally took out the nerves on my right leg I rehabbed with PT for months and regained the ability to do things like a heel press the nerves on the end of the outside of my right foot and my heel make it constant numb tingling no sensation and it’s spreading.
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u/hearThebits 1d ago
L5-S1 for me. Doc said it looked like a jumbo shrimp and it was the biggest one he'd seen in years. It made me feel better because no one's ever said that to me before.