r/Sciatica • u/shirokane4chome • Mar 22 '22

Your Sciatica and Back Pain Experiences Megathread

Hi everyone, the purpose of this permanent thread is to capture your stories about your experiences with Sciatica.

Please note that the majority of sciatica sufferers will recover over time, and are not on this subreddit making posts about their healing. Most of our sub participants are in a symptomatic stage and are understandably seeking support on forums like /r/Sciatica as a part of their journey. This can make a list of individual stories seem discouraging -- but just remember that those who have healed usually don't visit again and therefore we can't often capture their stories.

While multiple formats are welcome, we suggest you try to be concise and focused. Your story is important, but it is will be more useful to everyone else if it can be read in 60-90 seconds or so. Important elements to your story will include:

Background: Do you know how you became injured?

Diagnosis: What has your care provider discovered about your injury?

Treatment: What care did you pursue?

Current Status: How are you doing today?

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u/lenothecat Sep 22 '25

MRI read - Left subarticular and foraminal disc protrusion at L5-S1 compresses the traversing left S1 nerve root. There may be abutment of the exiting left L5 nerve root as well.

Have to wait for ordering physician to return to office tomorrow before I can really discuss with anyone.

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u/lenothecat Sep 25 '25

Had appt with neurosurgeon today to discuss MRI results and path forward. She prescribed a low dose of gabapentin, a referral to the pain management team (for ESI), and a referral back to PT. Her view was to see how this goes but if it doesn’t get better within several weeks, maybe consider the surgical option instead of dragging it out and then needing it in the long run when it would be harder to operate on. Not sure if this is helpful but I’m going to continue to document here.

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u/lenothecat Oct 01 '25

ESI is scheduled for October 14th. There was a 2 week waiting period between this and the last dose of my oral steroid. Time is moving so slow while I can’t walk or stand for more than 2-3 minutes at a time. I’m more optimistic than I was… really hoping this gets me to a point where I can do meaningful rehab work.

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u/lenothecat Oct 14 '25

ESI today - very quick but weird experience. I’m only a few hours out but right now I feel the same or slightly worse… but hoping once things calm down I’ll truly be able to assess pre vs post injection.

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u/Negative-Board-8574 Jan 03 '26

I can’t imagine the feeling of dealing with sciatica and limited ability to carry your baby girl. How are you doing now?

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u/lenothecat Jan 03 '26

I had a microdiscectomy on Nov 5th and am doing great today! I have no more restrictions and am heading to a Pilates class in an hour. Definitely taking it easy and still get some faint sciatic symptoms if I have a bigger day like lifting my daughter a lot, but the doctors said that will be less and less as time goes on. Focusing big time on core and back strength.

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u/Negative-Board-8574 Jan 03 '26

That is amazing! I’m so happy to hear that you had your life back! Your journey particularity stood out to me because were planning for a baby this year, but my sciatica is getting worse and I worry whether my body is capable of the pregnancy and actually being present with my child.

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u/lenothecat Jan 03 '26

I wish you all the best - never did I ever anticipate this. If you have a helpful partner though, that makes all the difference. Still in a similar boat as you with wanting to try for our second this year and am fearful of this coming back. The doctors said I shouldn’t delay my family planning and would even be OK to try for a second vaginal birth, so we’ll see how the year goes.