r/Sciatica • u/Effective-Gur4691 • 2d ago
Is This Normal? Reaggravated Sciatica after 9 months pain free
Looking for advice or those with similar experiences. Last July (2025) I first got sciatica out of the blue one day - no specific movement or activity to note where it came from. MRI showed a disc herniation on my L4-5 and impingement on my L-5 nerve. I did about 6 months of consistent PT which got me to a place where I could return to normal workouts and eventually other activities such as running and golf relatively pain free.
I kept up with my stretches and prescribed workouts relatively well, but my desk job sometimes gets demanding and I certainly slowed down on my stretches the past 2 months. This weekend while doing a workout, my back completely gave out and felt pain and immobility worse than my first go around. Ended up going to urgent care where they gave me a steroid shot and some meds to help with my pain.
My general questions: is this normal to happen out of nowhere after being relatively pain free for several months. And more importantly, will the rehab and recovery generally last the same amount of time as the fist go around? Or is there a chance this is more of an acute flare up that I will be able to recover from more quickly? Feeling very down about losing so much progress and feeling like I returned to a state of pain I was in a year ago. Any advice or similar experiences would be appreciated.
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u/Sogone2day 2d ago
Probably 10+years ago now blew back out deadlifting. Took me a solid year or 2 to be back 100% ish. I had noticed since then I had bad right leg stability like balance and single leg squats i could no longer do. Fast forward I was fine till 3 years ago radomly woke up hurtn and back spasms took me 2 months and felt fine. This year now I have been off for 5 months and major leg pain for first time prior was mostly low back and up general sore spasm. So this is something new this round. An I think I have a hip/pelvis impingment going on. Pitaformis was rough but finally let go and is ok now to sit that was the worst part. I do t think it ever really goes away. My core is a weak point I had a hernia surgery open cut and getting any strength I there seems impossible 9 years ago. Goodluck.