Herniated Disc ~ Young unknowledgable Individual

[CRUNCH]

Sorry you seem to be having a setback. I will kind of reiterate what I mentioned before. Be careful with any stretches/exercises until you know the direction of the herniation. For all you know, spinal flexion may be what you do need to do, your herniation could be the opposite of the one I have. McKenzie stretches (spinal extension) could make it worse, and crunches (spinal flexion) could help, You just don't know right now which way to go.

Have you had an MRI, can't remember if you said you did? If not, DEMAND one from your doc! Then get it to a good physical therapist, even a couple for more than one opinion. Same thing with chiropractors. They should be able to tell you what movements will help open the disk up, and which will push fluid out.

If I was you, in the meantime, the only stretch I'd do would be some kind of hanging. Like you'd do from a chin-up bar. Then do absolutely EVERYTHING you can to keep the swelling down. Advil, ice, and if you can find it, DMSO mixed with aspirin applied to the skin.

You can worry about lifting and your core when things start to settle down with your injury. Right now, don't risk making it worse or doing something that prevents it from healing. Again, that is what I would do.

After having been through this, that the best advie I can give. It will get better, but you need to know exactly what to do to help and not hurt.

 

[PHWSSJ]

you need to get an MRI with contrast done. Basically they inject a dye into you so the MRI immage is more clear so to speak. Get it done and see exactly what is wrong with you.
Speaking from experience... if you let this go on longer without the proper treatment you can cause permanent nerve dammage. If you ever feel numbness or tingling or have muscle spasms.. that is a sign that the rupture is cutting off circulation to your motor and sensory nerves. If its just pain then over a long period of time you might be able to fix it. But once you start feelling numbness and the other symptoms, the longer you wait the more irreversable dammage you will do.

 

[PHWSSJ]

Sorry you seem to be having a setback. I will kind of reiterate what I mentioned before. Be careful with any stretches/exercises until you know the direction of the herniation. For all you know, spinal flexion may be what you do need to do, your herniation could be the opposite of the one I have. McKenzie stretches (spinal extension) could make it worse, and crunches (spinal flexion) could help, You just don't know right now which way to go.

Have you had an MRI, can't remember if you said you did? If not, DEMAND one from your doc! Then get it to a good physical therapist, even a couple for more than one opinion. Same thing with chiropractors. They should be able to tell you what movements will help open the disk up, and which will push fluid out.





If I was you, in the meantime, the only stretch I'd do would be some kind of hanging. Like you'd do from a chin-up bar. Then do absolutely EVERYTHING you can to keep the swelling down. Advil, ice, and if you can find it, DMSO mixed with aspirin applied to the skin.

You can worry about lifting and your core when things start to settle down with your injury. Right now, don't risk making it worse or doing something that prevents it from healing. Again, that is what I would do.

After having been through this, that the best advie I can give. It will get better, but you need to know exactly what to do to help and not hurt.

good advice.. dont do anything till you find out whats wrong. Iwouldnt even lift weights. Just do cardio on an eliptical machine. The elevated heart rate will help get more blood circulating to the area. Thats all i would do if i were you.

 

[OCCFan023]

Yes I have had a mri done and its a postcentral herniation which basiclly means its just comming out to the right side. When I first started doing the Mckenzie stretches (the PT told me to do them) they felt great when I did them, now I cant even push up without feeling pressure and pain on the nerve. For some reason fluid has come out and has put additional pressure on the nerve and nothing (mckenzie stretches, pt, ball stretch is helping.) However when I started taking Super Cissus I may have been hoping for anti inflamatory properties to much and stopped taking advil (and now the area is really enflammed.) Im going to restart advil tommorow and hope it can help with the pain because atm it is not pleasant at all.

At the moment the pain is sharper when I get up, it has become almost constant in my calf, and can be felt shooting through my glute when i get up from lieing down. My ability to bend forward is essentially 0 and my stiff leg raise test has decreased a bit. Any cough, sneeze, loud yelling, or even laughing causes pain. It seems most of this has progressed in the following days when anti-inflamatory was cut down so that coupled with maybe a little fluid comming out is probably the culprit.

Also I have become worried about any chance of nerve damage. At one point my right glute was twitching when I would lie down but that has ceased. The pain can be pretty sharp there sometimes so I thought I would metion it.

My real question atm is my physical therapist is saying the ability to fix this is out of my or his ability to fix. I have a visit with my doctor tommorow as a follow up (it was made originally to be a follow up to the epidural) and I think Im getting some names for neurosurgeons (not to definitly have a surgery but show him my mri and get their opinion.) I was told by my PT a microdiscetomy would be a possibility but any surgery is really scary to me. Now Im not saying this is what im going to do but this brings me to my next point:
Ill be heading off to college in September and to be honest where I am atm I would waste my freshman year (no sports both intercollegaite and intramural or just with friends, no lifting, no real partying *yea being paranoid about my back would be fun right?* So what Im essentially looking out right now is the possobibilty of taking a year off from school (something that never crossed my mind before) but this would give me time to defintly rehab either this way, or even if I get the microdiscetomy I could rehab for 8-12 weeks, get back in the gym and just go from there. Either way I still cant believe this injury has brought into play having to fu**ing wait to go to college and enjoy it to the full extent.

Again surgery is not somehing I want to have done but like I said before I have become a little worried and second guessing my ability to fix this. Ill let you know what the doctor says (although its already guaranteed that hes going to say I need surgery.) I guess i can pray that the advil kicks in and helps.

 

[PHWSSJ]

you need to go see at least three specialist.

Make sure they are not just any ordinary docs. Make sure they are the best at least in your city.. GOOD LUCK BUDDY!

 

[yohan72793]

Hey guys. I'm new here and happened to see this thread about disc herniation. I have a herniated disc on the L5-S1 lower lumbar region i think. It is somewhere around there. I'm pretty sure I first got my herniated disc when I was lifting for football doing a parallel squat. My coach pushed me to do another rep that I told him I couldn't do, but he made me do it anyway. I pretty much collapsed and lucky for me, the catch bars caught the bar. I was squatting like 315 at the time. My lower back hurt a little but not that much so I continued lifting for a good 2-4 months. I altogether stopped doing leg lifts but continued doing upper body lifts once the pain got worse. The pain got worse by starting to travel down my right leg. At the time I didn't know that even bench presses were hurting me even though I felt a sharp pain each time I did a rep. I finally saw a physical therapist once the pain in my leg was pretty acute. I couldn't sit for long periods of time without having my bottom thigh hurt like a bitch. I found out a couple weeks back that I had sciatica from the family doctor and he told me I might need to get operated on. Well after I went to the PT he started me off with the McKenzie stretch and plank. Well starting from there I did a variety of exercises until the leg pain got better to the point where I could sit for relatively long periods of time, say like 2-3 hours. I then got lazy and basically skipped physical therapy for like the entire summer because my leg didn't hurt when I sat down. Bad reason, I know, but I wasn't as scared. Since the start of school at around mid-August I have been on and off with my physical therapy until now. As of now the pain when I sit down is virtually gone and I can do the test where the PT raises your leg to 90 degrees. I have pain in my right leg where the sciatica is when he does that test but it is bearable (at the beginning the pain in my thigh was unbearable to the point where he couldn't raise my leg up). It has been about 8 months since I went into physical therapy including the around 3 months that I skipped in the summer. The pain in my leg has traveled down my leg to my calf area but also up to my back where I sometimes get back pain when I sit down. I still have pain in my leg however and am wondering if you guys have any advice on how to get better. Everybody that I have talked to has said surgery is now out of the question because I am well enough to not get a disectomy or whatever it's called. I am 16 and willing to listen to any advice you guys might have to offer. I want to get to the point where I can play football again senior year and lift weights.

 

[Link24]

Hey guys. I'm new here and happened to see this thread about disc herniation. I have a herniated disc on the L5-S1 lower lumbar region i think. It is somewhere around there. I'm pretty sure I first got my herniated disc when I was lifting for football doing a parallel squat. My coach pushed me to do another rep that I told him I couldn't do, but he made me do it anyway. I pretty much collapsed and lucky for me, the catch bars caught the bar. I was squatting like 315 at the time. My lower back hurt a little but not that much so I continued lifting for a good 2-4 months. I altogether stopped doing leg lifts but continued doing upper body lifts once the pain got worse. The pain got worse by starting to travel down my right leg. At the time I didn't know that even bench presses were hurting me even though I felt a sharp pain each time I did a rep. I finally saw a physical therapist once the pain in my leg was pretty acute. I couldn't sit for long periods of time without having my bottom thigh hurt like a bitch. I found out a couple weeks back that I had sciatica from the family doctor and he told me I might need to get operated on.

Im in the same boat as you man, same disc as well L5- S1. . . I have been dealing with my herniated disc for almost 2 years now. I have tried several, chiros, Pt's, Osteo's, I have received two epidurals, decompression therapy, ART basically everything in the book. It has gotten more acute over time but still bothers me. So im pretty set on getting a micro discectomy its pretty much my last option. Lol my leg only goes up to 40 degrees now. For you its just really important to do alot of core exercises, stretches, dont lift to heavy, ice your back after activites, sleep with legs elevated. You just have to be really persistent with this injury, its sounds like your body is taking it very well if you have no more real pain while seated and can lift the leg 90degrees

 

[yohan72793]

i can lift it 90 degrees with some pain laying down. I can't lift my leg 90 degrees while sitting down because my leg hurts too much. I think the first step for me is losing about 50 pounds to become a healthy weight. I feel bad for you though. I guess each person's body responds to a herniated disk differently.

 

[Link24]

Well that good that you can do that. . were you at some point unable to lift your leg 90degrees? I havent been able to in over a year. Yeah, its a horrible injury to someone who is passionate to nutrition and weight lifting. This is by far the hardest thing I have had to endure in life yet. . . and it just keep haunting me, right when I think im healed it comes back.

 

[yohan72793]

yeah. It is very difficult to deal with day in and day out. And yes I definitely couldn't lift my leg 90 degrees while lying down for like 10 months and I still can't lift my leg 90 degrees while sitting down.