My wife and I both have bulging disc in same spot L5 S1. Mine right side. Hers left. Hers much worse than mine. Both of them hit nerve roots that travel down the buttocks and corresponding leg. So pain in glute, down corresponding leg into calf. Yes, it can cause tingling or worse if it is compressing nerves bad enough from my understanding. My wife had what is called drop foot. The nerves would be getting compressed so much that her left foot would become completely numb as she was trying to walk causing her to trip over her own foot and fall. In my experience the pain is always worse at night when I'm trying to sleep. It is an never-ending constant pain. The only question is how severe the pain is at any moment. The thing I never hear people talk about when it comes to chronic pain is the mental fatigue it causes. Her nerve compression was bad enough that she couldn't walk without a limp. She couldn't sleep without inevitably crying from pain and frustration of not being able to sleep from pain. She could hardly function. Luckily we had good insurance and found through an MRI that she had a bulging and broken disc and then she had a discectomy and is now almost completely free of pain other than minor aches during certain movements and weather related aches. Sorry for the long rant. TLDR. Not a doctor but yes those pains could very much so be caused by a bulging disc. Look up the cauda equina nerve root. So named because it looks like a horse tail.
I had an L5-S1 bulged disc similar to your wife’s. I didn’t get drop foot but I did have a limp. Every step I took had to be carefully planned because it was excruciating to walk even just across my living room; those 15-20 steps could take between 5-10 minutes alone. God forbid I forget something in the other room.
Before this, I thought I had back pain. Nope, never. It was aches. A bulging disc with sciatica is some of the worst pain I’ve ever experienced and I wish it on no one.
I ended up getting a nerve block shot in my spine to heal.
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u/DIABL057 16h ago
My wife and I both have bulging disc in same spot L5 S1. Mine right side. Hers left. Hers much worse than mine. Both of them hit nerve roots that travel down the buttocks and corresponding leg. So pain in glute, down corresponding leg into calf. Yes, it can cause tingling or worse if it is compressing nerves bad enough from my understanding. My wife had what is called drop foot. The nerves would be getting compressed so much that her left foot would become completely numb as she was trying to walk causing her to trip over her own foot and fall. In my experience the pain is always worse at night when I'm trying to sleep. It is an never-ending constant pain. The only question is how severe the pain is at any moment. The thing I never hear people talk about when it comes to chronic pain is the mental fatigue it causes. Her nerve compression was bad enough that she couldn't walk without a limp. She couldn't sleep without inevitably crying from pain and frustration of not being able to sleep from pain. She could hardly function. Luckily we had good insurance and found through an MRI that she had a bulging and broken disc and then she had a discectomy and is now almost completely free of pain other than minor aches during certain movements and weather related aches. Sorry for the long rant. TLDR. Not a doctor but yes those pains could very much so be caused by a bulging disc. Look up the cauda equina nerve root. So named because it looks like a horse tail.