And I just am not feeling back to where I feel like I should be. The headaches are coming back, luckily without the dizziness and nausea, but headaches were the first symptom I had before diagnosis. I'm increasingly restless at night, barely able to maintain a regular sleep schedule, even with alarms set to try and keep me on a regular sleep cycle. And then there's the other part: I am 100% off prescription medication. I wasn't exactly using any of the medications on a regular schedule or anything like that, but they helped greatly when there would be a symptom that would flare up. The muscle spasms in my neck are still bad, and my neck hurts almost as much as my head, but it's a much different kind of pain. I'm starting to wonder if I'll be able to go back to school and stand on my feet for 8 hours in mid-August when I run out of leave. And I'm starting to wonder if the surgery was really worth it. The headaches are somewhat less intense, yes, but there's still nothing over the counter that's touching them, and that really bothers me. I don't know if I just wasted $30K in medical bills (so grateful for insurance for covering all but $5K of that!) for something that just did not have a satisfactory result. I dunno you guys, am I being too harsh on myself for not recovering faster?
You are still early in your recovery. I had a few bad headaches in weeks 7-9 of my recovery.
Were you on a muscle relaxer? I'm almost 10 months post op and still take a muscle relaxer every night. I've tried to go without but my sleep gets restless and my neck starts to bother me a little. If I have to take one nightly to be able to function normally, I'm OK with that.
I'm able to work full time, vacation with my kids and do most things I could do before surgery.
Hope you find something to help before your pain gets out of control.
I had very minor arthroscopic ankle surgery last year that took 5 months to heal properly. By week 7 I still could not walk properly, and I only had the teeniest, tiniest bit of work done to my ankle. You had extremely major surgery done to a major part of your body! I agree with the others, if you are still in pain, you should try to get some kind of medication relief to help you through this continued healing process.
Time is your friend right now. Treat yourself kindly. :) Thinking of you!!
Give yourself a break! I’m 4 weeks post-op and seem to be doing well. When I was still having pain my NS told me to try taking the muscle relaxers again, and it worked. I’ve been off of them for two weeks.
Here's the thing: I have to be off meds before I go back to school, and I have to go back to school no later than 8/14 or I run into all kinds of issues with my grades and federal financial aid. And that simply cannot happen. I did, however, break down and call my NS yesterday to ask that my muscle relaxer prescription be refilled. And I slept last night like I haven't slept for almost a week. But my primary concern is that I need to go finish school and turn that page, before I start on a larger chapter like "How to work a regular schedule while dealing with this wildly unpredictable nonsense".
I am glad you called your NS and got a muscle relaxer...they had to cut through all those neck muscles too...took me a while to get rid of that type of pain which is so much different from the neck pain I was use to, you know??
Now..you are only 7 weeks out....you must listen to your body..I am so great at giving advice...not so good at taking my own advice..ha, ha,..But seriously, you entire body is going though an adjustment period.
My NS told me something like this.." your CSF has not flowed correctly for your entire adult life..possible your entire life..therefore it is going to take quite a while for your brain to re-calibrate itself to the new CSF flow." Once he put it that way...something 'clicked'..I got it...I somewhat understood that after many years of walking around with gooofed up CSF flow...I wasn't going to be A OK just because he took the staples out of my head....time takes time..another ditty I HATE ....but is so true....
You will be back to school in August...that is 1 mth away...BUT..In my opinion....you have to take it easy during this next mth..not to say ..lay around and watch re-runs on the telly...but....listen to the bod and maybe do a bit more each day...nothing crazy like.."Yeah, now is a good time to re paint the bathroom."
Sorry my reply was so long...one last thing..DON'T be a hero...if you need pain meds..take them....keep in mind you still have another mth before school begins..no need for you to suffer.