dealing with disc injury for 6 months. will i ever be 100% again?

[bjpennlegend]

ive been dealing with a herniated disc on my lower back for almost 6 months now.. it slipped out pinching a nerve that is causing pain on my left ass cheek down to my leg. sometimes on the other leg.

i recently joined the gym and i am doing alot abdominal and core workouts.
my question is:

has anyone been injured this long and was still able to recover 100%? how is your back now?

does your pain get worse at nightime??(when did you start sleeping pain free?)

how do you manage and control your back/leg leg pain?

any input would be appreciated......


this shit has affected the quality of my life and i feel like im running out of time. i want take the right direction and heal asap. im 22 years old

 

[arctic82]

Have you seen a physiotherapist or the like?

Man, your 22. Your time aint running out for decades. You have plenty of time to do almost anything. Well maybe olympic gymnast is a far fetch unless you already been doing that stuff since yout preteens.

But you wont get far if you dont get your back rehabilitated properly.

Many people have gotten into lifting after an injury and become extremely strong, you just have to heal the wounds first. It might take you another 6 months to fully recover, but thats not bad considering that if you dont get it rehab'd it will only get worse.

 

[bjpennlegend]

Have you seen a physiotherapist or the like?

Man, your 22. Your time aint running out for decades. You have plenty of time to do almost anything. Well maybe olympic gymnast is a far fetch unless you already been doing that stuff since yout preteens.

But you wont get far if you dont get your back rehabilitated properly.

Many people have gotten into lifting after an injury and become extremely strong, you just have to heal the wounds first. It might take you another 6 months to fully recover, but thats not bad considering that if you dont get it rehab'd it will only get worse.

word. i will make an appointment with a sports medicine doctor. ive seen a physical therapist before but quit after 2 sessions because they were charging me 90 a visit(i dont have insurance), looks like i have cough up couple hundred to get expert help.

as of now i do stretches, situps, and cardio on the elliptical, havent tried the treadmill yet. exercise helps.. but at the end of the day when i sleep, i get very sore and achy around the legs.

 

[Ascendant]

Was your slipped disc a Doctor-diagnosed problem?

Do this stretch before bed and after showering in the morning:

Hold it for at least 30 seconds, and don't try to get all the way to the ground like she is; go at your own pace.

And STOP DOING SITUPS.

 

[Forcetti]

I have the same problem, although I don't think its as bad as yours. It's been about 2 months and I'm starting to see improvements. What I've been doing is mostly just rest and a crap load of stretching especially the glutes, hammies, and hip flexors.
Are situps the only core exercises you do? Definitely ditch those, anything that puts your spine into flexion is a big no.I think planks are probably the best core exercise you can do right now, also try googling an exercise called 'bird dogs'.

 

[fat_wilhelm]

Active Release.

 

[RoscoDiaz]

With proper rest, as in doing no weights, running, pretty much anything that may involve your lower back, an injury like that can heal as quickly as two to four weeks.

 

[Old Man]

I pinched a nerve. I was never able to find out where, since an MRI showed that my back was fine. Initially I had a huge amount of pain in my lower back and groin. But the pain didn't last too long, maybe a month or two. Now it has been more than a year and I feel pretty good. I don't have any pain, the only thing is I don't have any feeling in my quad. I am able to squat and deadlift regularly.

You are young so you have a good chance to heal. Sometimes these things take a long time. I tore the ligaments in a knee when I was 18, and that thing took forever to get better. Even 10 years later I would be boxing and put my weight on my leg and it would give out and I would re-injure it. But now it doesn't bother me at all. In fact that leg is stronger than the other one because I have trained it so much over the years.

You need to get some insurance. I had kidney stones when I was 21 and it cost $25,000 to take care of it. Your pinched nerve is a pre-existing condition so even if you get insurance it might be hard to get reimbursed for it. But it would be good to continue to see a sports medicine doctor about this. I need to go too.

 

[bjpennlegend]

ascendent:

Ive had an MRI and was diagnosed with 2 herniated discs on my lower back(L4-L5, L5-S1) The L4-L5 disc is the one thats giving me the problems.

ive made an appointment with the doctor this friday.

thanks all

 

[Green Monkey]

Active Release.

+1

Add reverse hypers in there and you should be fine.

You could buy one of the cheaper RH machines for $300 or so, or build your own for about half that (just a guess).

Look all over the PLing sites - this is a really common problem with them.

Nearly every superheavy has done what you're describing, based on what I've read.

WARNING - These aren't back hyperextensions. Please don't do those right now.

 

[Reza Nasri]

sounds like you have sciatica. Which by some coincidence i had bad when i was 20-23.
It can linger on for years without proper attention.
Most back problems originate from poor stomach muscle strength. Try sitting and driving in straight chairs and dont slouch. Take ibuprofen to control the pain and sleep on a hard mattress on the floor. Once the pain has gone make sure u do 15 minutes of stomach excercises twice or thrice a week.

 

[ahheadlock]

you're 22 so you can recover from this, but you have to be conscious of your back from here on in. It'll be a weak spot, but if you can build and maintain good strength and stability in that area once you have recovered from your injury, and are smart about rehabilitation and how you train after returning, it shouldn't destroy you.

DONT have surgery. Yeah its a quick fix, but once there is scar tissue in there - you will never be rid of it, and the reduced disc space will cause you trouble down the line. trust me on this, i speak from personal experience. Personally my lower back is a wreck. i'm 28 now, had surgery when i was 20, and I now have 2 degenerating discs, decreased nerve space, one very small crack in my verterbrae, facet joint degeneration, one bulging disc and the other is covered in scar tissue that noone can break, reduced disc space... all sorts. It aint ever recovering. The doctor says i can box when this latest bout of crippledom ends (i've been out of action for 7 months and it's only just starting to recover), but will need careful "pain management". I cant kick or grapple or use my knees anymore. yay.

 

[a statistic]

i am having facet issues as well, the doc i saw called it facet syndrome. he said the discs all look good though.

i have major pain when i straighten my back out, sometimes...it is really frustrating. somedays it is bareable but others it is a real beatdown.

he gave me a list of stretches to do, which didnt really help, but i have been focusing on core exercised more lately and hopefully they will help.

it is weird, sometimes i can run and play basketball and things with no problem, but sometime i can hit the wrong angle getting off of the couch and crumple to my knees in pain.

back issues suck...and i quit going to the doc because of the money also, and i have insurance. probably stupidly i keep working out, only because if i didnt i would be a fatass.:icon_cry2

 

[MMAftfw**]

Try a doctoc first.

 

[ahheadlock]

it is weird, sometimes i can run and play basketball and things with no problem, but sometime i can hit the wrong angle getting off of the couch and crumple to my knees in pain.

yeah i'm the same. One day it'll be like it never even happened and life will be roses, and the next day it'll be agony. The only reason i know i'm improving is that the agony days have subsided to ache days and i do seem to be able to get away with a bit more before causing myself grief.

i haven't given up on the doc yet though. At the moment i'm seeing like 4 of them haha. Acupotomy, Prolotherapy, Chiro and Physio. The first 2 are the worst kind of pain.

 

[hxcpirate]

I suffered nearly this exact injury when I was 19. A bulged disc and degenerative disc disease at L4/L5 and L5/S1. I let it go untreated for a few months thinking it would go away, but after a while trying to deal with a pain level of 8 out of 10 was too much. I was first sent to physical therapy before they would do an MRI. The therapy taught me some stretches that helped temporarily ease the pain but it always returned. After the MRI, I was given a few options: deal with it using stretches, try chiropractic methods (decompression tables, etc), or epidural steriod injections at the site. I went and tried a table at a chiro only to have the pain worse the next day that slowly eased back to my normal pain level. So I went with giving the injections a try thinking that it would only be temporary fix and that I'd need them occasionally throughout my life. After 3 treatments my pain was down to about a 3, and now at 21 I'm back to playing hockey and I'm completely pain free. I'm not saying that injections are always a cure-all, but it worked for me, so if you're presented the option I would at least give it a shot.

Also, I was told the degeneration was partially caused by improper hydration and having a weak core was also what led to my injury. So make sure you stay properly hydrated and if you get to a level where you can work your core without too much pain (definitely avoid situps) you should certainly work on that. Get yourself a good chair with a supportive back. My pain was always better towards the evening and worst in the mornings, so I can't really help you there. Some of the stretches I was taught were:

1. Lay on your stomach, slowly press you upper body up with your arms up to a position you feel comfortable with, exhale so your lower back sags, lay back flat
2. Sit on your knees and lean out straight with your arms above your head and touch your hands to the floor (like a praying Muslim), repeat doing this angled to the left and the right
3. Sit up with both feet out in front of you, cross one leg over the other at the knee so that one leg is out straight and the other is bent at a 90 degree angle, place your elbow from the same side of your body as the bent leg on the bent knee and rotate your upper body away from that side, repeat doing the opposite side

Those stretches always helped ease the pain temporarily. Hopefully I've helped some. Hang in there and know that there is definitely a good chance of you being 100% again in the future. Even after a rough hockey game I'm still pain free, and I never thought I'd even be able to play again.