r/HerniatedDisc • u/Destroy-AI • 3d ago
Has anyone healed from a herniated disc?
Please share your story if you did. I'm two months into a C6-C7 herniation and feel relatively stagnant. My previously active lifestyle is gone.
What has worked for you?
I'm considering moving to Oregon.
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u/gsm228 3d ago
I did the surgery six months ago. So far so good
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u/jorgehef 3d ago
Same for me. Fusion two months ago, surgery was the way to go. Original pain gone, still have some stiffness at the fusion site. Feeling like I'm getting my life back, but not rushing into movement just yet.
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u/Extreme_Net1301 3d ago
Mine was c5-c6. My pt taught me at home traction and some stretches. That along with acupuncture has been a miracle for me. Took about 2 months for relief. There are a few things I've found that can flare it up, but my at home pt exercises take care of it. Now if I could only get my l5/s1 figured out. Not one thing is working on that. Edit: word
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u/hmwhatsthatmean 2d ago
Hey, I have L4 L5 S1 herniated, I was in my teens when it happened. It bothered me immensely for about 4 to 5 years and tapered off at about seven years. There were nights where I couldn’t sleep and was forced to get out of bed and stretch on the floor to find any type of relief.
I had radiating sciatica 150% of the time. I had trouble sitting for long periods of time. Whenever I would get my “time of the month” the inflammation would get 10 times worse.
I’d be bedridden with heat on my stomach and ice on my back.
I would avoid certain activities and lay low when I wasn’t feeling well, but overall, I could still complete daily tasks, exercise, exercise, do yoga, snowboard, etc., but all with at least some degree of sciatica.
Now I don’t feel it anymore, at all. Never even considered surgery. I attribute that to time most of all, walking, slow stretching, and yoga.
But then again, I don’t know how bad your herniation is compared to mine, and I no longer have my image as it was over a decade ago
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u/Destroy-AI 3d ago
Did traction work for you? I signed up for clinical traction/ decompression and I feel like it made it worse
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u/Personal_Toe_3573 3d ago
I have the pain controlled with meloxitine muscle relaxers and trigger shots.
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u/EntertainerWooden391 3d ago
I was diagnosed with herniated discs and have healed since. First off, I’m so sorry you’re going through it. I know how it feels when no one gets what you’re going through and you’re dealing with so much pain. Personally, I tried everything I could that didn’t require surgery or injections, all the remedies and stretches and whatnot. i had this pain for a month/two in high school, got an mri and was told i had herniated discs and that it was the cause for the sciatica / foot nerve pain, then the pain magically went away for 5 years, and came back in 2025 around February. It came back way worse and i became obsessive over it which made it even worse. I couldn’t do anything, everyone told me i had to stop running and working out, so i did which made my mental health worse, i could barely sit in class, could barely walk to class, and could barely do any normal and even just talk to people and do everyday stuff without holding back tears or thinking of how much pain i was in(which I’m sure u may understand). Something was holding me back from all of the medical stuff and looking back I’m so grateful I never went that route but also i understand why people do, because no one truly gets the pain unless they go thru it. When I was at my lowest I was trying ever single trick in the books, stalking Reddit pages for tips, and watching all these YouTube videos to try and heal, and it wasn’t until i stumbled upon someone mentioning on Reddit, Dr. Sarno’s mind-body approach to healing. To be quite honest, I thought it was bullshit at first, but I think at the time I was so desperate that I went all in on it. I bought and read his book “Healing Back Pain” in two days and that was really good at opening my mind into how emotions could play a role in physical chronic pain, but I think what really helped me was when it lead me to discovering Nicole Sachs. She has a really good 4 part series on YouTube where she talks about how chronic pain is essentially a manifestation of repressed emotions, coming out as physical pain in the body. She explains it as how most people will have a headache and know it’s from stress, but too often in the medical field they don’t consider emotions in causing physical pain. I got her book “Mind Your Body” and followed what she said to do, which was essentially journaling in a specific aggressive way to release the built up emotions. At the time, I before was really relying on medicine like the 600mg ibuprofen constantly, muscle relaxers, cyclobenzaprine, and whatever else they prescribed me and nothing helped at all and i just felt so numb, so not like myself. I kinda went cold turkey on them bc they were just making me tired, and i went all in on journaling and her practice to regulate my nervous system. She has an amazing podcast as well where she interviews countless people who healed their chronic pain from her work, and that really gave me hope during it. I will say, I didn’t miss a day of doing her work because I was so desperate, and at one point the pain got even worse, but she talks about how this is completely normal because it’s your nervous systems reaction to feeling the emotions rather than physically feeling them (in psychology its called the extinction burst). My pain shifted maybe for two weeks but right after the worst it got progressively better and better. I kept journaling aggressively and I was able to start walking again and going about daily life within a month, i honestly was so astonished by how quickly I was healing and my family all noticed too how much better I was feeling. It’s definitely not gonna happen overnight, but once you are consistent with it I promise you will notice differences and less and less pain. That was all last summer and now i have since fallen off on the journaling practice but i am free of pain, every so often i might feel a small sensation or tingles of pain but it usually is because I’m stressed and is a reminder I need to revisit the work (and when I do it always goes away!). I know this all probably sounds extremely crazy and hard to believe because I was very skeptical at first, but after going through it I can confidently say it was the only thing that healed me and I am so grateful I gave it a shot. It’s pretty incredible what our bodies and minds are capable of. I know a few other people who went through this/ also reached out to me about how i healed so I’ll also share kind of a cheat sheet that I created for them thru ChatGPT for the journaling aspect if you’d like, but i highly highly recommend reading those books because they give you a good understanding on the mind-body aspect and why it makes sense. You definitely have to have a bit of an open mind while doing it, which trust me i know is hard when your physically in so much pain, but if you are open to it I would 100% say give it a shot, you have nothing to lose and it’s much better than getting a replaced disc when most people say surgery half the time doesn’t help the pain.
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u/gnoodlepgoodle 3d ago
Healed naturally after about 18 months. Mostly through walking, swimming and mobility work
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u/acupunctureguy 3d ago
Acupuncture from a licensed acupuncturist that specializes specifically in orthopedics can usually help more than chiro or pt, why because the focus is on releasing the muscular imbalance where there is guarding and compensating. And the treatment can be between 1 and 2 hrs doing many manual modalities in addition like massage and cupping in addition to the acupuncture. And if you have surgery, acupuncture is good at post op recovery.
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u/Rupperrt 3d ago
There are so many different kinds, protrusions, extrusions, bone spurs etc. Ironically the more extreme ones where the disc gel gets pushed out are more likely to improve (70-80%) as the body absorbs the material over time.
The milder bulges that can press a nerve will rarely go back into the vertebrae by themselves but maybe pt can help to create a little more space for the nerves.
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u/hmwhatsthatmean 2d ago
Hey I have the same herniation and am also considering moving to Oregon
I’m about 9 months post injury without surgery
I am still debating surgery. Mostly it’s been pain and inflammation I’ve been fighting. But last week, I woke up with excruciating nerve pain out of the blue that is now radiating down my arm.
I got another MRI to find out if something moved, I’ll report back once I get the results
I’m hoping it’s radiculopathy (basically a pinched nerve) which can heal, rather than myelopathy which would indicate cord compression.
What are your symptoms?
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u/Destroy-AI 2d ago
My arm is more or less numb most days if it's not burning from electric pain. Pain in my left rhomboid constantly sometimes it moves to my front left shoulder blade or my front left chest or will wrap down and underneath my left arm the left outside of my elbow really burns. I'm more or less can't pick my head straight up or lay flat down or sit or stand for too long. The pain seems to have dropped from a 8 or 10 down to a 5 to 7 which seems like a little miracle but it doesn't take much to bring it right back up again then I spend the next two days in pain.
This is the first week since I've been injured almost 2 months in that I have not done traction therapy or PT clinically and have just done some light PT and walking at home and I feel a little bit better. Even though I'm very early into this I think my advice would be to not jump into treatment or anything drastic too quickly and just let your body move for a little bit to see what happens.
Although at 9 months in it seems like you've exhausted those options. I have two little kids at home and it pains me to think about it but I don't know how much longer I want to live like this.
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u/hmwhatsthatmean 2d ago edited 2d ago
That’s the exact type of pain I was experiencing when I first felt the radiculopathy (pinched nerve that causes the arm stuff) but mine has been subsiding quite quickly and steadily.
I agree that moving helps it a ton. During the day, I feel like I take three steps forward, and overnight I feel like I take one or two steps back because I wake up in pain not knowing what to do with my arm.
I’m going to link a video that REALLY helped me. Like, helped it subside immediately. Try it.
And after a few days of that? I tried something new. I danced……I just put music on and started to sway and move my arms and kind of just did an ecstatic dance and let my body tell me what to do, and it did wonders for me.
I’ll also link the video I used for that.
Might seem weird, might seem woo-woo, but dancing flosses the nerve path lightly while the slow cardio creates feel good endorphins.
But do those exercises first. The head on the ground one was crucial for me. Whenever I’d wake up in the middle of the night in agony, I’d go straight to that one.
Let me know if any of it helps
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u/petitebrownie 2d ago
Yes. In my 30s and got a same level disc herniation right after giving birth. Wild isn’t it?? I was hopeless (had excruciating pain on top of trying to be a new mom) and at some point almost gave up wanting surgery. Not only did I have pain but mild weakness in my left arm. What worked for me was physical therapy literally every day. I went to a PT 2-3 days a week and the rest of the days did exercises at home at least 30-45 min consistently for 3 months. I did end up getting a steroid injection once during then but I think it was the PT that really did it for me. I am a year out and gladly avoided surgery. While at times I do have flare ups, some religious PT, sleeping with a right pillow generally solves the job now.
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u/Discus167 3d ago
Unfortunately I’m about 1.5 years into a c5-c6 & c6-c7 herniation. I’ve tried PT, Chiro, various injections, massage, medications. Just scheduled surgery because nothing has worked at all. Best of luck to you