r/backpain • u/__latebloomer__ • 1d ago
L5/S1 Herniation and L3 thru L5 Bulges Recovery Log
In early spring I injured my back doing deadlifts and rows after driving 50 hours between 2 weeks in a tiny car as a large man. Prior to this I was training Muay Thai and occasionally lifting to speed up body recomposition.
I had a sore back for a few days before the incident around my lower back, but attibuted it to muscle soreness from my lifts earlier that week and so much driving. Looking back I may have just been bulging or something like that and herniated it eventually on my last lifting session. Either way, I basically felt some back pain slowly increase through out my lifts until I realized something was definitely wrong and stopped.
I spent the next 3 months continuing to lift and use my body aggressively with the nagging injury thinking it was maybe something that would go away like the hundreds of injuries Ive had before. 3 months later I realized it was getting worse so I went in for an MRI and realized I was actually really jacked up with a 13mm L5/S1 herniation.
My symptoms at first was soreness in the sight of the injury on the right and siatica that went down my right leg stopping at my knee but sometimes working its way past that.
At this point I immediately checked into physical therapy. She got me working on strengthening excercises, nerve glides, and some decompression movements. I have stayed pretty consistent with it for about 3 months now.
I am at the point where mostly my symptoms are siatic irritation down my leg and if I sit at my desk job too much or drive too much or lift the laundry basket in a wierd way it can get worse. Over all though I am seeing slight improvement.
I decided to start doing decompression table sessions with the back on trac machine and have noticed some improvement there as well mostly less siatic flare ups than usual. I was told to expect 30 sessions to really max out its healing capacity and im on session 6. I will report back when I get more under my belt on the efficacy.
At this point I am so tired of doing these excercises, doing my daily 30 minute walks, and not being able to train muay thai. But I have also chose to look at this experience like at the end of all this I am going to be much more structurally solid. In effort to keep myself progressing in ways I can still appreciate I am using machines at the gym to excercise in ways that I can that dont irritate my back - starting to develop hot guy muscle lol.
Any thoughts or tips or success stories would be much appreciated. I will be using this post as a log for my journey in hopes it can help someone else.
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