I'm the same - numb toes, weak feeling in leg etc. I can walk better than I did before the surgery, but am disappointed that I didn't get the "instant relief" I was told I would. Know what you mean about the oven mitts though - I have RSD in my left arm/hand which leaves me with "asbestos" fingers. I can pick up anything hot.

I take Gabapentin, Tramadol and Nortriptylene at the moment, all maximum dose, but I still have pain. I see my Surgeon on Monday for a post-op check, maybe he'll have some ideas. I've never tried Lyrica - I don't know what the equivalent to it is here in Scotland.

Thanks for your reply.

That's quite the cocktail they have you on. At the moment, I'm on that old standby Tegratol. It works better than the Lyrica, but things are a long way from sunny.

Cheers

hi scottish girl and hockey,
interesting posts.
i just thought i'd add that i have quite a bit of old nerve damage in one arm, found only two weeks ago during a nerve conduction study and then surgery a couple of days later where the neurosurgeon found an osteophyte and again the old nerve damage which the nerve conduction study had found.
He removed the osteophyte and did decompression which has helped with the excruciating pain and worrying numbness in my fingers but the neurologist prescribed gabapentin around the same time 300mg twice a day and 600mg at night and the two have worked well. the beauty of gabapentin also being that it's not addictive.

I took it for a good while and all I'll say is I gain weight and can't hardly get it back off.
Fancylady

Me too! I did manage to lose around 14lbs but it took a long time to do it. Weight gain seems to be a common side effect of Gabapentin. Maybe one day they'll invent something that just does the job it needs to do, instead of leaving us with "little extras".

The weight gain is complicated. Before my accident I was a jogging, skiing, swimming, hockey playing maniac. Now I can barely move. My brain injury also changed my tastes: all of a sudden I was craving sweet food I would never have even looked at premorbid. The brain injury also caused depression and sometimes I feel that food is one of the few pleasures I have left. Take all that and add Lyrica and the results can be pretty dramatic. This year I'm going to write GOODYEAR on my butt and fill my long underwear with hellium so I can float over the Superbowl and watch the game for free.

SIGH

did it help with neuropathic pain?

Nerve damage is a hard one to correct...Lyrica has helped me the most, but I am on a pretty high dose. Any thought of a spinal cord stimulator mentioned?