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[6CMFemurs]

Raceworm,

You gotta get up on your walker and go to the bathroom on your own/start doing normal functions man. Trust me, you will feel a lot better in general when you are walking around on the walker. I did Precise 2 at around 150 pounds and was on the walker from the day I left the hospital, if you are 130, you should definitely be fine. Don't overdo it, but also establish a little routine of being independent. The first three weeks were tough, but trust me you will feel better soon

[racecarworm]

Did you get up on the walker by yourself? I needed assistance and still it was hard.

[racecarworm]

I have a medical/portable toilet to put next to my bed do shorten the trip. Still, It is difficult to rotate 90 degrees by myself and I need assistance. I’ll try my best to go alone on the walker tomorrow. Thank you so much for the advice.

[6CMFemurs]

@Raceworm: Yes, I was able to get up on the walker by myself and using a normal toilet from the beginning. I could actually walk on my walker from bed to car and from car to PT. Within a couple of weeks I was using the walker to get everywhere. It gets easier in a few weeks, trust me.

[6CMFemurs]

Obviously, if it is insanely painful, don't hurt yourself, but you need to move a little. A good trick especially at the beginning is to bear almost all your weight through your arms on the walker and just basically touch tap heel/toe with your feet as you walk, so you are walking and get the walking motion but not bearing too much weight on your legs and hurting yourself.

[Serilium]

Aren't you still in the hospital? Why the rush to get up?

[Dionysus]

My experience was very similar to 6cm femurs.Before surgery I was 155 pounds, but now I lost over 10 pounds.And getting to toilet was never painful for me.Also one question, 6cm femurs after how many days you were allowed to walk unassisted?

[racecarworm]

I was discharged on afternoon of the third day post op. I am trying to stand up and move around with the walker with other people assisting me since many people are telling me (including the doctor) that I should be walking with the walker. It is difficult to even stand up from a seated position in bed with help from people on both sides. It is currently 1am and I made it to Day 4 post op but I am very tired and the ice packs got me a bit wet and am very uncomfortable, so looks like day 4 recap will come tomorrow.

[racecarworm]

Thank you for your wishes man, seriously helps a lot mentally (my mental health is healthy and fine, I just appreciate it).

I will call Dr. Mahboubian’s office tomorrow and ask for his statement about the deep bone infection.

[racecarworm]

Hey! I’m not sure if my private message went through yet, I just responded and I will also reply to this comment on my thread now. Today is Day 5 post op (1:52am) and I’m still reliant on my mother to take care of me. I think the first week or so is extremely uncomfortable and you would most definitely need someone to help you out for a couple days once you’re out of the hospital. When you’re in the hospital (I believe it is for 2 nights) You can press a button and the nurses will come assist you, some are nice but some are a bit harsh when you ask them to physically help you (When one of the nurses pulled a catheter out it was extremely painful since she did it without much care). But, I think you wont neeeeeed a care taker for the first days when youre in the hospital since the nurses do the job well enough. I think you could hire one, the tasks my mother does to help me are very simple (still difficult). Things like grabbing water from the kitchen, food, changing blankets, or helping me adjust my legs / balance my torso or move my pillow. I can’t speak about the necessity for the caretaker throughout the lengthening process as Dr. M has not yet given me the go ahead, he wants me to wait a full week so I’m meeting him at his office on Tuesday next week.

[redwedding]

dear racecarworm,

do you feel your experience would have been easier so far if you had did just the one leg and not the other? do you think you could have did it all by yourself then? Or do you feel that it would have been the same difficult because discomfort = discomfort one leg or two.

cheers,
sergio

[racecarworm]

Yeah, definitely. My right leg is also more sensitive in pain, less flexible and weaker muscle wise, despite it being much stronger pre-surgery. This may be to the small leakage that Dr. M said is no problem, but I will ask him the exact reason why.

[racecarworm]

Today is Day 5 post op.
Woke up extremely painful and sore, slept in splits of like 4 hours, woke up 3 times. I went to bed early but kept waking up needing to adjust my legs while in pain.

[Serilium]

Keep fighting brother. Serious post-surgical trauma pain only last the first week and a half or less. You leaving the pain soon. You got this.

[racecarworm]

Thank you so much man. Your words help a ton, I felt like   a couple hours ago and this message helped me out a lot. Just reminded myself it wont last long and I’ll be done with this process soon.

[Unknown]

All the best mate. How would you rate/compare this pain on a scale or how much it hurts compared to other pain/injuries u had in the past?

[racecarworm]

I had a grade 4 ankle sprain from sports before. I think this is a more of an annoying, constant pain compared to like an excruciating one like a severe ankle sprain. I’ve never broken any bones, so I can’t compare but it’s like an annoying sense of numbness and soreness. I could deal with it, but it is also mentally challenging when you’re not able to do the same activities as before, just the smallest things like sleep on your side or grabbing something by yourself. Pain overall has been minimal other than when I take medicine without eating or when I do some assisted exercises, have not tried anything by myself yet.

[Unknown]

Ahh, glad to hear that the pain is at least tolerable to you. Hope you get better soon! Keep us posted!

[6CMFemurs]

@Dionysus: I was never allowed to walk unassisted until I consolidated enough for full weight-bearing about 5 months post op/6 weeks post lengthening. I just used the walker the entire time.

[racecarworm]

I did it! Made it past the night. Today is Day 6 post op, but I will write the Day 5 diary here. Day 5 was uneventful and disencouraging, the pain wasn’t extreme but I did not rat enough when I took medicine and it hurt my stomach. Furthermore I had no caretaker around for physical therapy so I did not attempt to do any exercises since I was afraid of failure and of hurting myself. So I just sat in bed all day. Aaaaand my body became super sore from not moving for many hours straight. At about 9pm last night I finally got the motivation to do self physical therapy for the first time, witjout assistance. I had to slowly lift my legs up with my hands helping a bit, move directions, push myself up to move my glutes and repeated the process until I got to the side of the bed. Then, I had my father put a small box below my feet to keep it bent, since my legs hurt when they hang off the bed (my tibias are not that short the bed is just very raised lol). I had him give me the walker and I was just sitting there thinking for like 30 minutes or so, giving my legs some rest. I really loathed the prospect of hurting myself while pushing myself up on a walker without assisstance, and I didn’t have the strength to either. It’s weird, I should be able to do it easily like a dip exercise and just push my triceps down on the walker and carry all my weight, but for some reason I cannot at all. Ultimately had my father help me up, then I rotated 90 degrees and sat down on the portable toilet. When I was moving and taking steps, I noticed my left leg not being able to lift off the ground, compared to my right which easily did so. This is weird since my left leg was much less painful and more flexible when I was in the hospital. If anyone has any ideas why or what muscle is used to lift up your leg when you walk it would help a lot. I then got back to bed, same process but with more help as I was exhausted by that time. It took me 2-3 hours to move off my bed, stand up turn 90 degrees and sit down, and the same thing backwards to get back on my bed. I ate a lot and iced my legs and massaged it for another hour and crashed when it was 2am. I woke up 2 more times, once at 5:30am as I slept sitting up and wanted to move down, then another at 8, then fell asleep again until 9:30am. Now it is 11:30 and I have not done much since.

[racecarworm]

Day 6 Update:
I have a lot of bruises on the side of my legs and my glutes that came from nowhere. I’m not sure what caused this, or if theyre even bruises. I will talk to Dr. Mahboubian tomorrow about it and will give updates on this thread.

[racecarworm]

Say 6 Recap: First half of the day was uneventful and uncomfortable. I was however able to extend the time periods between each norco pill, usually its 4 but today I made it 5. At about 7pm I did my physical therapy, I was once again able to get off the bed by myself but my left leg was extremely painful, at my hip. Between my quad and my groin, there were tons of constant aches that really limited my pt. I stood up with help, hurt the same place a lot but my right leg was mostly painless, and slowly rotated 90 degrees over to the portable toilet and sat down with help. I took a dump and the trip back to my bed hurt a lot more than the initial. After that my body was in heavy pain for about 30 minutes or so, but I could not take another norco pill since it had only been 3.5 hours since. However about 30 minutes after when I was able to take the pill I did not, and haven’t since. I did some light stretching on the bed with some assistance from my mother, lifting my leg up and pushing my knee towards my torso to stretch my glutes and quads. From there on I had been surprisingly comfortable, 0/10 pain with some small, short aches at random times. I feel “normal” and my legs do not feel numb or sore. I have done the same stretches and pt 2 other times since then and will now head off to bed, without any norco (hope thats not a terrible idea). I have to wake up at 5:30am tomorrow morning to drive to Dr. M’s office and meet him for an appointment.

[racecarworm]

I got this black calf massager from amazon (since they made me use one at the hospital for circulation) I figured it would help if I had one at home aswell, but this one keeps turning off every 40 minutes or so and I have to turn it back on. Goodnight LL forum

[racecarworm]

Day 7 Update
I woke up at 7am for my appointment with Dr. M at 9am. I had to get into my wheelchair for the first time, get in the car from the wheelchair, and get off again. It was actually not painful at all throughout the whole process, of course I still needed assistance walking but this time I was able to lift up my left leg for the steps. Before this, I had to drag my feet to move it forward then let it down to take the step. However, this whole process was much faster and completely painless. The only time I felt some pain was when I got on the car, but it wasn’t anything extreme. I will finish this reply once I have more information, currently in the Dr’s office waiting for him.

Update: I have met with Dr. M and the Nuvasive rep! He says that I am doing well and should be able to stand up by myself and that it’s a mental block mostly. He also says that I should be able to remove the stitching surtures on Thursday. I asked him about the deep bone infection as redwedding was curious about and I was able

Update 2: Holy  , I got home, pushed myself up the stairs by sitting down and doing a reverse tricep dip upstairs. I got up with the walker by myself and with no assistance I was easily able to take a couple steps. I’m absolutely ecstatic currently and I’m so excited to do more physical therapy. I’m currently in bed and I’m at 0 pain while icing my legs. I feel amazing!

[racecarworm]

Hey sergio,
I asked Dr. M about infections and he said that I should not worry at all, and that all risks of infection were within the first 2-3 days post-op. I think he didn’t quite catch the fact that I asked specifically for a deep bone one, not the external patches that may have infected within my surgical surtures. If you would like, I will ask again about it the next time I see him (2 weeks from today), but I think it would be best for you to just email him and get a record of what he personally says.

[increase]

can you say how much you paid in total for the surgery?

thanks

[Serilium]

Pain: *aight imma head out*



Don't go too overboard though, be careful. Some dude on this forum felt like superman on day 5 post op doing femurs at Paley and started walking alot with no walker and felt like a God. Next day he was sore like a b***h  and had to take a whole week off or two weeks. haha

Glad to see the pain reducing and your spirits lifted

[racecarworm]

Bahaha yeah man dont worry I’m not gonna be doing anything without the walker. Thanks for the heads up

[racecarworm]

Thank you so much man! I need to get my xrays done this week too and then I’ll upload them here. Do you have any kind of pain of uncomfort when lengthening? My left leg experiences some acheing even though its the first week and the doctor says I should barely even feel it since my legs haven’t lengthened much and won’t experience the stretching pain / soreness.

[racecarworm]

If anybody knows if there should be pain doing lengthening with precice please lmk! I will also contact Dr. M myself and ask about it again but he said I shouldnt have any during the first week since it’s still barely lengthened.

[Arcon]

Hi, from what I know, lengthening itself is not painfull.