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Foot Nerve Pain

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lisa95879
lisa95879

After a L5-S1 in October, I am left with residual left foot and partial leg nerve pain. In addition to numbness, my leg aches. My MRI looks clean, but neurosurgeon referred me to neurologist for possible nerve root injections. He also suspects the it may be radial sympathetic nerve issue. If nothing else, he's willing to take hardware out to see if that helps. I keep falling with my left foot so "numb," so I am frustrated. Is the device that scrambles pain.  (can't think of it now) good for nerve pain? (Pain extends to my left lower back.) Has anyone had nerve blocks for nerve pain?  I wouldn't have had surgery if I had known my mobility would have been comprismised so much. Thank you all, Lisa

1 like, 4 replies

4 Replies

  • lindagkelly
    lindagkelly lisa95879

    Posted

    I just had 2 sympathetic nerve blocks for nerve pain and neuropathy. So the first one was done between L3-L4 for my right foot. I have a lot of pain and numbness and tingling in my right foot.  It is painful to walk on that foot, but not so numb that I fall.  The nerve block did not take away the numbness, but it took away the pain for over a week.  The doctor took this as success, and went on to the next step which is called a radio-frequency-ablation.  They burn the ends of the nerve between L3 and L4 in the hopes of getting pain relief for up to a year.  This is not considered surgery at all - it was done on an outpatient basis.  I had the choice of getting "twilight" anaesthesia or none.  The first time I went without the anaesthesia and it was fine on the right side, but very painful on my left side and actually aggravated the pain on the left side of my back for about a month.  I am 3 weeks out from the RFA but it takes 4-8 weeks before you know if it helps.  I can say that for the most part, the pain and burning, shooting needles out of my toes feeling is much much better.  They also just did an RFA on the left side between L2 and L3 to help with the pain I have in m left thigh.  No improvements on that yet.  The other thing you should check is an SCS - spinal cord stimulator.  It's an implant that helps with leg and foot pain such as you describe.  I have a medtronic neuruostimulator that is supposed to help, but the surgeon put it in the wrong place! They do a trial first, so they can determine where to put the implant, and that was successful, but my surgeon did not put the permanent implant in the same place because there was some scar tissue and he does not like to deal with scar tissue.  Therefore, it's barely effective. Also, the medtronic uses tingling to scramble the pain. There's a new one out called the Nevro Sensa CF10. It does the tingling at a high frequency wave so you can't feel it, but it still scrambles the pain. Plus it also helps with pain in your lower back, which the Medtronic does not.  I would urge you to google it because there are some problems with the Nevro.  Even in the patient manual, it discusses the battery. The battery has to be charged daily with the Nevro but only weekly with the Medtronic. But it supposedly only takes about 1/2 hour or less.  But the big deal is that the battery can overheat and actually burn your skin. I heard that they have come up with a workaround so that the battery automatically turns itself off if it reaches like 101.5 .  I am seriously considering having the Medtronic removed and replaced with the Nevro, but I would like to see more improvements with their battery first. 

    Finally, I think you may actually have "drop" foot if your foot is so numb that you are falling.  Good luck to you.  Also studies show that the neurostimulator works best if you get it implanted within 2  years of the onset.  If you want to be conservative, I would start off with the sympathetic nerve blocks, then the RFA. Then you can buy yourself time to wait for the Nevro to improve their problems with the battery.  Anyway, that's my plan.  Good luck to you Lisa!

    • lisa95879
      lisa95879 lindagkelly

      Posted

      Linda,

      SO much good information in here. You have helped beyond what I expected. Thank you so so much. 

      Lisa

    • lindagkelly
      lindagkelly lisa95879

      Posted

      You're so welcome. If I didn't say it, I would opt for the twilight anaesthesia on all procedures. You're only out for about 10 minutes.

      Good luck. I know that's a lot of information all at once, but you sound like you are going through the same things I have gone through.

      Linda

  • brittney55912
    brittney55912 lisa95879

    Posted

    Hi there! Did you have a fusion done at all? I am about to schedule my surgery for fusion of L4-S1....i hope your foot problems resolve!

    -Brittney

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