Just some observations on my life in the recuperation lane.
Every since my surgery last Friday little aches and pains have been showing up in various places. This may have been happening since my first surgery just over three weeks ago, but my memory of that time has been lost in an anesthetic haze.
Sometimes half of my hand or foot will fall asleep. My hand or foot will be divided by a line that runs between the third and fourth digits - i.e. the outer most two digits and that side of the appendage will fall asleep and I'll get that tingling sensation you get when an arm or leg falls asleep. Diligent flexing of the affected appendage will generally wake it up and the tingling will go away.
Occasionally I will get a cramp in my legs. Before my first surgery cramps in my calves were becoming more frequent. Since then they have diminished considerably. Now and again I will get a mild one in the back of my left thigh, the one that didn't cut into.
Last night I got a muscle spasm around my right hip joint. This was almost in the same place as when my hip dislocated itself a week and a half ago. That was a bit concerning. The pain hung around for an hour or so but this morning it's gone.
Yesterday I got a pain in my right shoulder. That was weird, why should I be getting a pain there?
Cramps are more intense versions of muscle spasms. Neither one is under conscious control, but cramps are intense, painful and will get my full attention. Muscle spasms are more like little curiousities - huh, look at that. Cramps can generally be cleared by stretching the affected muscle, though sometimes it takes a lot of work. Muscle spasms generally go away by themselves after a few seconds.
5 comments:
When I was recovering from knee surgery I sat in a chair with my arm on the armrest. Like you the fingers in my lower hand went numb. It turned out this was a problem with my ulnar nerve from resting my arm on that armrest so much. I eventually had to get surgery to fix it. Make sure you don't rest your arm too much in one position.
Do you have arthritis in your spine? Has your spine been impacted recently? I have a similar symptom in my hand; my thumb and forefinger will occasionally go numb. It started happening after I cam home from a trip to Hawaii. During that trip I took a backroad ride in an off-road UniMog "bus". During that ride, the bus lurched into a large pothole and then came back up violently. On the up-thrust, the bottom frame of the window caught my left elbow and jammed my upper arm and collarbone up into my neck. After X-rays, the doctor said I had chronic spinal arthritis that had already narrowed the spinal apertures where the nerves come out of the spine. The violent lurch had shoved two of my vertebrae even closer together, crushing one of the nerves to my hand. After six weeks of traction and physical therapy, my symptoms were mostly relieved, but it still happens sometimes when I sleep on my left side.
Glad your doing well enough to notice the little bumps and potholes your body creates, that means no major misery going on.
I hate waking up with cramps or numbness in the extremities knowing I can't do anything but ride it out.
I'll have to do some ulnar nerve investigation as my desk chair has two armrests plus I have a habit of leaning on my desk. That may be the answer to some odd numbness.
Thanks ambisinistral.
That reminds me. My old desk chair was giving me a pain in my left arm where I rested it on the armrest. Discovered that the foam padding had collapsed. I kept putting my arm in the same position and a rigid part of the armrest kept poking me. I got rid of the old chair and got a new one.
https://pergelator.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-curse-of-stuff.html
Chris - I do have arthritis - that's what made my hip-joint go bad, but that's the only noticeable place. I do have some stenosis in my back, but that problem has mostly gone away, or at least I thought it had. Right now I blame the drugs and the general chaos caused by surgery, but I will ask the surgeon. Seems I remember them asking about tingling when they were checking to see if my feet still worked.
https://pergelator.blogspot.com/2020/10/stenosis.html
https://pergelator.blogspot.com/2020/10/steroid-injections.html
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