Question
I am a patient who is in terrible pain and very confused, some advice I did get was that I have a malpractice case to file....even so I want to be whole again....This is some of my story...can you help me???: Injury 7/04 work related. Treatment going nowhere. I had discs L3-S1 bulging into my sciatica with torn ligament. Unbearable pain, so bad passed out, had seizure....I went to a different dr. who started helping me get more mri's ect. As of Feb 1, 2007 I have been totally disabled and home bound. I had more injections a set of 3 in april 07 unsuccessful. It did help the sciatica, though.June 6,2007 I had the lumbar fusion L4-S1 with rods,pins,hardware,bone graph from right hip. I woke up in uncontrollable pain! Besides my back pain from surgery it felt like my ankle was bashed with a sledge hammer! They took me off of the iv pump on the third day and gave me 40 mg oxycontin.  I had already been on 80mg 2 x's day with Percocet 2x's day for a long time. I screamed for 6 hours in pain then finally called the vice president of the hospital. Immediately I had pain relief till the next day. Anyhow, I came home on the 11th and was in the surgeons office because of drainage and pus on june 20th. He cut out the top part of one of sutures and sent me on my way. He went on vacation the next day and I became worse. Both incisions filled with pus and were draining.  I had two seperate cultures done and it came back as staff. I ended up back in the hospital very sick. Ever since I woke up from surgery my ankle felt like it was crushed, leg pain back, sciatica back worse, hand,arm,and neck pain also now.. and told while in hospital being treated for staff infection I had drop foot now by a neurosurgeon (surgery done by an orthopedic surgeon). They came very close to   having to remove all my hardware (per the neurosurgeon 1mm more). When the surgeon came back from vacation he came to the hospital and released me then had me go to his office where he cut out all of the sutures--I nearly bit my lip off trying to contain myself! By the way the neurosurgeon said it should of been done in the operating room and all dead and infected skin tissue removed and then re-closed but he couldn't do it because he did not know what the orthopedic surgeon did to me.(horrible work)Ortho surgeon said I was allergic to the sutures. The draining continued and I told my primary care dr. who admitted me into a hospital where he works and had infectious disease dr take over. To date the wounds are not closed but I have a home health care nurse come daily to do wound care. Dr might want me back to hospital. She also obtained positive staff infection cultures.  Even though the surgeon is dismissing everything going wrong as nothing. I saw a physical therapist from my primary care and he is having a brace made for my foot because he said I could fall down from the drop foot.I am in unbearable pain. I am very confused and I dont know what to do! The surgeon has told me that he has never seen anyone in as much pain as I am in 14 yrs! Until I came across this web site, I was sinking into a deep depression because I couldn't understand how I could be the only one feeling this kind of pain, now I know I am not.  Obviously he is not going to help me get better and restore my life without so much pain or medication!  I am only 42, July 20th was my first year anniversary with my second husband who I INCREDIBLE. I was a rape victim as a child, then 20 years of domestice violence that led me to a sucicide attempt. I have to beautiful kids, 19 and 16 and my life was just turning around!  For the first time in my life I have someone who really loves me, I did not come into his life to ruin it by being so sick and on medications.  I did not think people were referred to as addicts if they took medication for real pain, I thought your body metabolized it different when the pain is real vs. someone taking it for other reasons.  My leg, ankle and foot pain are what is debilitating me now.  My wounds are not closed all the way yet because of the infection which I have been on Augmentin. ( they gave me very strong antibiotics through iv while in hospital..vencromyocin?)  CAN YOU HELP ME?  

Answer
I can not help you much.  The symptoms you are describing with the sutures and infection should be considered by a medical doctor.  My guess by what you have told me is that the reason for the "drop foot" is that 1)the infection of the sutures got to the sciatic nerve and is causing damage, 2)the doctor was careless and damaged the sciatic nerve during surgery, or 3) there is some muscle tension in and around your buttocks that is irritating the sciatic nerve.  Any and all of these should be checked out and discussed with your doctor.  The reason the "injections" worked is because the medicine was most likely an anti-inflammatory and that reduced the inflammation around the nerve.  That is good for short term relief, but not a cure.  Talk to your doctor about these things and if you have any further questions of concerns, please email me.

Dr. Starbuck