I am six months post spinal fusion surgery and am still struggling with chronic pain in my foot due to nerve damage from the surgery. My doctor has me on nortriptyline and gabapentin (the gabapentin I am weaning off however because I am concerned about it making me diabetic).

Is there anything I can be doing to help promote healing? The past few nights I have wrapped a heating pad around my foot thinking that maybe the increased blood flow will help. I have no idea what I am doing though and my doctor is not very helpful in the matter. He keeps being very positive and thinks I just need more time and the pain will fully go away but for the past three months it has stayed the same and now is getting worse.

There are supplements that help nerve healing. There are lots of posts here if you do a search, I found this one and it is good:

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...damage+healing

There are lots more if you search. This is what I searched:

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/se...damage+healing

Thank you! That was very helpful. I have been a bit overwhelmed by everything and didn't do a very good job searching this forum by myself. After some reading I am feeling more hopeful that things can improve.

Hi Kat, I am sorry you are going through this. There is an amazing amount of information through the search function. MrsD is a wonderful resource and researcher, so make sure you look through her past posts. Diet, exercise, supplements & not being too hard on yourself are the best things you can do. Find ways to manage stress, getting lots of rest.

I'm also sorry to hear about your husband. (from your other post) That is hard. If you read through some of the posts here, you'll see people have spouses and families and can find joy and are with people that support them through it all. Don't give up on yourself! You are worth love and respect and sometimes some people can't handle the hard times, so they leave. You deserve someone who will stay.

Hang in there!