On April 15, 2020, I Had An Emergency Laminectomy Of

Posted on Wed, 30 Dec 2020

Question: On April 15, 2020, I had an emergency laminectomy of the lower back-8" scar. Not being able to tell when my bladder was full turned it into an emergency during the pandemic. The main concern was severe pain from the lower left back to the knee. Went through O.T., P.T., got into plenty of walking and exercise, feeling better every day. Long before the surgery I developed a cough from lisinoprilHTCZ (taken a.m.) and lisinopril (taken pm). My doctor put me on Amlodipine Besylate 5 mg on 9/18, and my ankle swelled and BP went up. On 10/10 I was put on Losartan Potassium 100 mg, ankles still swelled. Furosemide 20 mg was added 10/16. Still swelled. On 11/10 med was changed to Diltiazem 24 HER (CD 240 mg CP since BP was still high. No change in BP, med changed to Diltiazem 300 mg. Worse swelling. This is the problem: My leg pain started gradually, on and off, since early October and has gotten worse, now severe most of the time. My surgeon said the nerves are still sensitive and I should take it easier (yet all my activity from June- Oct. actually decreased the pain and made it go away!) My question is this:Are these BP meds causing my left leg muscles to cramp and cause pain and should my med be changed. No problem with the lisinopril except the cough and am tempted to go back to it to see if this is the case. Advice?

Answered by Dr. Ilir Sharka (2 hours later)

Brief Answer:
I would recommend as follows:

Detailed Answer:
Hello!

Welcome to Ask a Doctor service!

I passed carefully through your question and would explain that the pain in your leg does not seem to be related to your current anti-hypertensive therapy.

In my opinion, the main problem with your current anti-hypertensive therapy is the leg swelling and the uncontrolled high blood pressure, which may need further changes to your current therapy.

As far as I understand, you have stopped taking lisinopril, amlodipine and you are actually taking Diltiazem, which is a similar calcium channel blocker to amlodipine, but with more effects on the heart rate than on blood pressure values.

Coming to this point, I would recommend taking an ARB drug (olmesartan, valsartan, etc.) which is a similar drug to lisinopril, but does not cause leg swellling or cough and may help control your blood pressure values.

I would also recommend checking vitamin D plasma levels for possible deficiency, as it may lead to muscle cramps and pain.

You should discuss with your doctor on the above treatment options.

Hope to have been helpful!

Kind regards,

Dr. Ilir Sharka, Cardiologist

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar