What's up with House's leg?

Question

I've just started watching this show in the past week and have been trying to get caught up as much as possible.
However, I'm impatient and need to know EXACTLY what happened to his leg, cos it's not been addressed in the eps I've seen.
I've heard it had something to do with a blood clot, and somehow his ex-wife screwed it up, but I hear different versions and would prefer an exact answer.
Thanks!

Answer 1

In the episode "Three Stories" in Season One the story is explained.

House, a drug addict, is out playing golf when his leg starts hurting him bad. he goes to the hospital but nobody there knows what to do. (Did I mention he looks like Carmen Electra for purposes of this story? It was funny)

Anyway, he can't wait any longer for them to figure it out so he grabs a needle and some morphine and jams it in his own leg to kill the pain.

The doctors treat him as an addict putting him on bedrest and observation to see if the pain in his leg was anything treatable or if he was just looking to score a fix.

Three days later, House is no better so they shove a catheter up his penis to see if he is in real pain or if he is just in it for the drugs. He urinated orange. They could not figure out what was wrong with him. Him, being a nephrologist, told them to check hi for muscle death. They did an MRI and found an aneurism in his right leg cutting off blood flow to the muscles in that leg.

Cuddy gets involved telling him that it has been too long and now the leg needs to be amputated. House tells her that he is really attached to his leg and he does not want her to cut it off. He chooses instead to have the anheurism repaired and suffer with the pain that will ensue.

The rush of potassium, however, kills House, giving him a heart attack. they bring him back to life but the problem is that there is more pain and more potassium to come. House chooses to be put in a chemically induced coma to sleep out the pain. He refuses any surgery and tells his girlfriend, Stacy, and Cuddy that this is how he wants to proceed.

While he is under, however, Stacy signs off on a surgery to remove the necrotic tissue from his thigh. The surgery was not necessary and probably did nothing for him.

So, House wakes up. His nervous system and circulatory systems are fried from the enfarction being cleared and the toxins being released in the blood stream, and; his thigh now looks like a shark took a big bite out of it leaving him with a limp.

The pain he suffers from is the result of bothe the surgery destroying his thigh and the aneurism filling him full of toxins.

You said you wanted to be exact.

House got shot in Season Two and tried to chemically fix the thigh, and it seemed to work but the repair was short lived and as the pain got worse his need for pain pills got worse. It has ended up with him being arrested on drug related charges.

They want him to go through rehab but if he does it will probably end him up in the Hospital for either another Heart Attack or a possible Amputation and Carpal Tunnel surgery. The damage has already been started to show up in his right arm and shoulder. It will ruin his hand in no time.

BTW, Stacy and House lived together but they were never married. They had been together for five years and he gave her his medical proxy. Six years later she brought her husband to the hospital for House to treat him and that was clarified.

Hopefully you are clear on everything now.

Answer 2

okay his leg was explained in season one and he was never married his ex-girlfriend Stacy and Cuddy are responsible ....the leg pain was caused by a clotted aneurysm , Cuddy tries to convince house to amputate his leg but he refuses sayin he wants them to save his leg.
He has surgery on his leg and when he comes out his in excruciating pain from the muscle death in his leg that had accured. Then he goes into cardiac arrest...and cuddy has to save his life.
His girlfriend stacy asks to have him put in a medical induced coma to sleep thru the pain. Cuddy agrees while house is unconcious, Cuddy asks stacy again about the operation.

Stacy then asks Cuddy about the middle ground between a bypass and the amputation that she recommended earlier. Cuddy explains that they can go in and take out the dead muscle tissue. There’s some risk of reperfusion injury, but Stacy quickly agrees to the procedure. House explains to the students that because so much muscle was removed, the utility of the patient’s leg was severely compromised. Since they waited so long for the procedure, the patient continues to experience chronic pain.

Answer 3

Bad Motorcycle accident, I think after a bad scene with his wife. I don't think they went into great detail about it, but I did miss a few episodes that season.