Nerve pain

Good evening,

I am 4 years post stroke and still in a lot of pain. The bottom of my foot is really overly sensitive  and it hurts when I walk.

My hip and my shoulder really hurt as well. It all feels really tight/contracted. It's really painful.

Does anyone have the same problem/ have any ideas for stopping the pain ? Help!! 

 

Dear Sue

i am approaching five years post stroke. The shoulder pain is common but I dont have that. Other SS mention frozen or dropped shoulder.

Painfull foot when walking turned out to be a version of flat feet. Orthotic inserts have helped a lot. My GP sorted that one. Hip pain was, for me, due to not walking upright and straight. I did seated yoga and the yogi helped me put my legs in the right position. Hip pain went away in days.

i remind myself that stroke only damages our messaging system and not the joints etc. However, after a year or two of not moving as we used to move, things hurt.

Keep on trying. Things will come right eventually.

Smiling will help you feel better. Being positive will help you find your way  towards improvements.

and tell yourself how well you have done so far. Four years is a long time

Colin

 

 

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Hi Sue, I am the same number of years post stroke too. The main pain I had was in my fingers  of my weak hand when they came back to life. At night, when I stopped using them I got a throbbing pain in them. This was treated with Baclofen. However, this drug can be addictive so I decided to come off it. One night I decided to go with the pain in my fingers to see how long it lasted. It stopped after an hour and a half.

I did have a problem with aching hips, largely because I was letting my strong side compensate for my weak side. Ever since, I have tried to improve my walking gate. As for my weak side should, it feels heavy,exactly like a frozen shoulder. I have had physio for this, but now live with it. I can use it, but the feeling of heaviness never goes. My exercise teacher pointed out that our arms hang from our body. However, strong shoulder muscles and the fact that our brains accept this oddity of hanging limbs means we accept our arms as 'normal'.

I would suggest talking to your gp to see if anything can be done medically to resolve your problems.

Hi sue 

I am in a similar stage at 4.5 years post stroke. I see john jeff has commented in much the same way as I can. I had serious shoulder pain in the earlier days as JJ says due to weakness in the shoulder muscles which are a cluster of quite small muscles around the joint. The weieght of the arm can strain them easily if they are on your weaker side. I did a set of relatively easy shoulder exercises for several months, and it solved it. You can find the program online I believe, it is called Grasp, published by a Canadian University. It includes hand exercises as well as arm exercises. The key is to restore a little bit of strength in the shoulder muscles.. Like John Jeff, recently I have had a bit of hip pain I think due to inactivity during lockdown and uneven gait, I can walk with a stick but still no fluidity in gait. This upsets me greatly as walking was a great pleasure for me. I have scaled back my outings i would aim for a short exercise walk most days but find I just can't do it at the moment trying to do lighter stuff around the house even just standing uses more muscles than you are aware you have, So I suppose in summary, exercise what you can when you can it all adds to the health and strength of the weaker muscles which wont get ttheir usual daily use aas a result of the stroke. The shoulder exercises do work if you put the time in. I don't now do the daily exercises but would not hesitate to start again if the pain came back. I no longer have shoulder pain, it was excruciating when I did, not something I would want to go through again. Good luck, keep at it, I hope that might give you a glimmer of hope

Best wishes 

TONY 

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Hi Sue. I am 3 years post stroke and suffered with numbness and nerve issues with my non-stroke leg which I had physio for.  A bit like Jeff's physio, my physio says everything to do with the legs comes from the back\spine so the issue is to correct what's going on in that area. She is a spinal injuries specialist and cured it in about 4 sessions.  It turned out to be a disc protusion which is 'mobile' i.e., it only pops out when I sit down, usually on hard chairs, which pushes it onto my sciatic nerve causing the numbness.

Oversensitivity is common for stroke people - even a slight tap can send messages to the brain of pain - I think it's because our brain has come so far over time since stroke that it 'screams' out even if not really needed just in case it does hurt. A sort of self-defence mechanism!  

For shoulder pain, you could ask your GP for a cortisol/cortisone? injection (sorry, brains a bit mush today) not sure what the right word is. I had a frozen shoulder years ago, pre-stroke and that injection cured it virtually overnight. My hubby also has the same injection for radial tunnel syndrome due to working on computers all day at work.  So worth pursuing with your GP.  Don't suffer in silence - there is help out there! x

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Hi I am 17 months post stroke and my left side suffering pain in particular the foot over sensitive and need pain killers regularly mainly paracetamol, have tried amiltryptapine and then gabapentim for 3 weeks each , no noticeable improvement only the direct pain killers work but not for long , really hampering my walking and mobility

Hi I am 18 momths down the recovery road and have similar pain challenges left foot is really sensitive and painful.

I have been told by my physio to have the foot rubbed with skin lotion first thing to get the brain used to the sensitivity, some minor improvements also the doctor is trying nortriptyline at 25g at night which offers some easing but not completely pain free, usual painkillers like paracetamol and codine do easethe feeling but never got long enough. When the pain goes I will walk away praying that it’s soon as the whole thing is beyon a joke

Hi Tony
I have numbing, tingling and burning sensation down side and front of my thigh since my stroke 3 months ago which is not to severe but can cause problems sleeping. My stroke doctor and physio talked about it coming from my spine and effectively dismissed it.
I don’t know if this is similar to you but I wonder if it will go away itself or if I need some targeted physio?