For me, during the aftermath of the surgery, I’ve been experiencing three different types of pain.

1. Muscle pain. This occurs not merely at the location of the surgery, but up my thigh and down my calf. This has been the easiest type of pain to deal with, as oxycodone and OTC pain meds will take care of it. I include site specific pain in this classification, the actual incision itself being tender, the bruises that formed after the surgery, etc.

2. Bone pain. To me, this feels significantly different than the muscle pain. It’s centered around the knee and it goes deep. It’s a throbbing pain that feels as though it’s originating in the middle of my leg, from the bones, and radiating out. I feel as though this pain occurs primarily at the intersection of bone and metal. Oxycodone doesn’t really touch this pain. Surprisingly enough, the OTC meds will take the edge off of this. Won’t turn the dial all the way down but frequently will take it down by a quarter to a half.

3. Nerve pain. This is the worst of the pain by far. Fortunately, while I’ve had more than most people (at least according to my doctor) I still haven’t had that much. If you ever have surgery and end up with a lot of nerve pain, get your doctor to give you specific medication for dealing with that pain. Nothing else will touch it or turn it down.

The nerve pain is the only pain I’ve had that comes close to migraine levels of pain, up to a 6-7 on the pain scale. None of the other pain I’ve experiences has come close to a bad migraine. (As I had a migraine early on in this process, I can say that emphatically.)

Nerve pain, to me, feels as though my skin is on fire. Other people describe it as electric shocks running just under the skin. I’ve had a little of that as well.

I’ve had three bouts of bad nerve pain in seven weeks. One, maybe two, were due to hormones run amok. And again, my doctor’s patients generally haven’t had this level of nerve pain. So YMMV.

Last night was another bout of severe nerve pain. I was sound asleep when at 12:30 I woke up and it felt as though my entire leg was on fire. Took me a few moments to get oriented and realize that all the nerves from my knee down to my ankle had decided to party.

Backing up just a little bit first. When I first came out of surgery, they gave me a nerve block that numbed the top of my leg, from the knee down to my ankle. Couldn’t feel anything in a two inch swath down my leg. It was wonderful. Absolutely no pain in that area for the first five days.

However, a few days after I removed it, the top of my leg still felt numb, down below the incision to the ankle. My PT told me that was common, and that it might take a full year for all those nerves to wake back up again. Plus, I might have a spot on the side of my knee that remained numb, and would never feel fully again.

I can live with this.

Unfortunately, for my body, this means that sometimes the nerves reconnect and get set on fire. Like last night.

How do you deal with nerve pain? You have to touch the part of your body that’s feeling the pain and rub the skin gently. It means a really fucking sharp spike of pain, just for a moment, when you first lay hands on yourself, then the pain diminishes, sometimes rapidly, sometimes not.

It is not fun.

Particularly since, for me, I end up having to do this more than once. I’ll rub my knee, the pain recedes, I’ll get back to whatever I was doing, then the pain will spike again.

Last night I only had to rub my knee and leg down twice before the nerve pain diminished for good. Still took me about two hours to get back to sleep.

Again, YMMV. You may or may not end up having this sort of pain with any type of surgery. I figure eventually all the nerves will reconnect and I’ll stop getting these sorts of attacks.

This morning, when I ran my fingertips down my leg to test sensitivity, I was surprised at how little numbness remains. I have some level of feeling in most of the skin along the top of my leg. It’s patchy, which also surprised me. There’s a spot close to the mid-calf that’s numb, while above and below it are more awake. The spot on the knee itself that I figured would never wake up has a little sensation in it as well. Don’t know how much sensitivity I will end up with, but I will have some feeling there. I don’t believe there will be any spot on my leg that will stay completely numb.

So there you have it! My nerve pain edition. Writers, feel free to ask questions if you feel the need to inflict this level of pain on a character at some point…Believe me, I certainly will be.