I broke my femur near my hip on July 1 and needed surgery to put in a nail and screws. I had the shooting butt-to-toe pain when I walked, diagnosed as sciatic nerve inflammation. The physical therapist worked on it with exercises, cold packs and massage for several visits and it went away. I still have inner thigh pain and foot numbness on occasion, but not the shooting pain. I also have narrowing of L1-3 in the spine, but it didn't cause pain before the surgery and when the inflammation went away, so did the pain. One lesson I learned, which doesn't make sense, is that Advil, Aleve, ibuprofen etc should not be used because they inhibit healing after bone surgery. So extra strength Tylenol was all that was allowed, with a single aspirin for blood clot prevention per day. Don't use an anti-inflammatory for inflammation? Not sure why, but it worked in my case. I swear by physical therapy and think that did the most good in recovery.
Cara, glad to hear you are getting more tests to figure out what is the cause. Hope someone figures it out soon. I was told that any MRI would be harder to read because of the hardware, so you might want to ask if that is part of the problem. An independent orthopedist might tell you if it was a surgical injury that could be related to poor technique on the part of your surgeon. I am seeing a second opinion because the physical therapist feels a screw protruding farther than it should into the inner thigh where the pain is. Not that I am suing for malpractice, just that I want to find the cause of the pain and get it fixed.
