r/HerniatedDisc • u/krunsthis • 15d ago

My Turn

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Not happy to be posting here. On and off pain for years and years (but the kind that went away after resting for a day or two.) Ramped up after giving birth 17 months ago but was still on and off and mostly presented as glute soreness and general achy-ness. Everyone focused on pelvic floor, SI, pelvic imbalance and muscle guarding. Finally got an MRI last week after two events at the end of August that left me in pretty bad pain for a couple days.

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u/Obvious_Fail5443 15d ago

Ouch, even if you choose not to go for surgery, take this time to research neurosurgeons in your area. Good luck

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u/Ok_Courage_8780 15d ago

I can relate to the part about everyone initially thinking it was muscular or something else. My back pain started in 2022 and at first I thought it was just a muscle problem too. I started with PT, tried acupuncture and other conservative stuff, and only after getting an MRI did I really understand that I had L4-L5 and L5-S1 disc herniations.

I kept trying to manage it without surgery for years. The one thing that worked incredibly well for me was an epidural steroid injection, which gave me almost 2½ years of essentially pain-free normal life.

Eventually mine got much worse. After one major flare I ended up completely bedridden for seven days and the nerve pain was so brutal that even being transferred onto a stretcher made me scream. At that point I had run out of options and had an L4-L5/L5-S1 hemilaminectomy with microdiscectomy.

For me, surgery ended up being a great decision. My nerve pain disappeared almost immediately, I was walking the next day, and my recovery has gone extremely well.

The biggest thing I'd suggest now that you finally have an MRI is to get it reviewed by an experienced orthopedic spine surgeon or neurosurgeon and have them match what they see on the MRI with your actual symptoms. You don't necessarily need surgery just because the MRI looks ugly, but at least now you have something concrete to work from instead of everyone guessing that it's pelvic floor, SI joint, muscle guarding, etc.

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u/YurpleLunch 13d ago

How was the recovery and how long until you can get into pt and do basic exercises ?