epidural fibrosis after L4 L5 discectomy

[shellyc1960]

I had surgery on 11/5/08, on the 10th day post op I ended up in ER with severe pain, I could not walk at all, I went in for an L4 L5 discectomy, 3 hours into surery the surgeon went to the waiting area and told my husband, I apologize, but I cut in at he wrong level of your wifes spine, we just took her in to xray to find the correct level, I was under thru all of this, he ended up cutting my back from the incorrect area all the way down to the L4 L5 and performed the discectomy, I woke up in severe pain, it was hard for them to bring me out of anesthesia.  The next morning the doctor came in and sat on my hospital bed and told me he apologized that he had cut in at the wrong level of my spine , so he cut down to the correct disc and the back opened up and it was a lake of blood, he said it was hard to get the bleeding under control, he had to use small tools, the size of an ink oen head to suction the blood out of my spine.  When I got home from the hospital I had to tie bedsheets to the frame of my bed, I could not roll over, turn , nothing, I had to use a walker to walk for about a month, anyway the pain has just got worse and worse and worse since then, I live in constant chronic pain, I am on 200mg morphine every 6 hours, with 2 percocet and also soma to sleep.  I told my docotr there is something wrong in my back, I can feel it, it was not there before this surgery was performed, this is a new pain and it is 10 times worse then the pain before surgery, now my right buttock and leg are starting to have pain.  They sent me for an MRI and they emailed me today saying they only see scar tissue but the radiology report is not in yet, so they will give me more information when that comes in.  I guess my question is , do you think that if he would have just cut in at the right L4 L5 and did the discectomy and was out in an hour like it should have been, instead of being 4 to 4 1/2 hours of surgery and all the suctioning of blood and all, do you think I would still have these issues if the correct surgery was performed int he first place.  I do not know what my next step is, but I can barely make it to work 15 hours a week right now and from what I have read it is only going to get worse!  Please any information you could give me would be great!  Thank You for your time!

Michelle Campbell
California


This discussion is related to MRI results and epidural fibrosis?.

[Dr Vinod]

The spinal nerves control your upper limbs and lower limbs and most functions of the body. Spinal nerves come out of your spinal cord, out of the vertebra at respective positions. The level where the surgery should be done and a normal level are completely different. When he has gone at a different level all these symptoms you are facing are popping up. Now you need time for healing and you need to do lot of physiotherapy slowly to get back to normal.
For pain continue taking your medication and follow up near your neurosurgeon. You have a choice to consult another neurosurgeon.