JUMPING LEGS

[janey52]

I had multiple spinal surgeries.  The last one was November 2008.  I had fusion and capsone cage.  I also have RSD in right foot for the past 20 years for which I take neurontin.  I have nerve damage from the spinal surgeries and still have severe low back pain radiating numbness/tingling down left leg and buttock.  I have peripheral neuropathy in bilateral feet.  Now I have a problem with my legs but have not seen any doctor.  After being on feet doing laundry or running errands, my legs feel funny.  This happens when I am resting or relaxing.  My legs feel like they want to still be running and I have to shake them or walk around to get relief.  I do elevate them on pillows and that seems to help.  I don't have pain in them but they feel funny and it is very uncomfortable.  What do you think this could be.

Janey52

[Dr. A. Srivastava]

Hi, Thank you fir your question. It seems that these funny symptoms are related to reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD). It seems that you might have leg nerve injury during the surgery so that may have been resulted into RSD (reflex sympathetic dystrophy). Symptoms of RSD could be intense pain in leg, numbness, altered skin color, swelling and abnormal sensitivity. Treatment of RSD mainly includes steroid & pain killer. In addition, physiotherapy is the essential part of the treatment to improve the movement of the affected leg. I would suggest consulting a neurologist as well in order to reach at probable diagnosis here. Hope this information proves helpful to you.

[ggreg]

Might be restless legs syndrome or RLS, that's a neuromuscular condition where the legs will spasm and hurt, especially in the calves.  The more active you are, the more they do this, and whenever you lay down to rest, the whole thing gets much worse.  Sometimes a back injury (or surgery in your case) will set this off, altho the etiology is unknown.  They have medicines for it, and a very good family or internal medicine doc will know how to treat it, or best is you can visit your neurologist.