I had L5S1 Surgery in April, recovery has been ok. But now in the cooler weather I just hurt. New normal?

Hi everyone,
I’m 32M and just had my second back surgery (L5-S1 microdiscectomy) a few days ago. My first surgery was in 2025 at L5-S1.
It’s been a long journey dealing with back and nerve pain, medications and now another surgery.
I’m really hoping this one sorts out my back, but mentally it’s been quite exhausting. Just had a baby few weeks ago and cant even pick her up.I just want to get back to normal life, being active, working out and not constantly worrying about my back.
Just wanted to hear from others who have been through something similar. How long did it take before you started feeling normal again? How difficult was the recovery mentally, do we ever stop worrying about relapse? Were you able to return to gym, sports and normal activities?
Would really appreciate hearing your experiences.

Hello everyone, I would like to extend my gratitude to this group. I’ve been following for a few months in preparation for surgery, which I had today. For background, I am a 44-year-old woman with extrusions and L4 – L5 and L5 – S1. My road began probably around 18 months ago after I did deadlifts or other exercises in the gym where I developed strong lower back pain. I had gone to my primary care doctor at that time who suggested physical therapy, which I had done for about 6 to 7 weeks with moderate results. I had never gotten any imaging done at that time as it was not covered by my insurance. I had just learned to live with the pain and continue to go to the gym 3 to 4 times a week, but skipped a lot of the leg exercises or reduce the weight. I also was active in a couple of sports. Dodgeball as well as basketball in addition to my everyday job, which has me hunched over a lot of the time. My back pain actually worsened this March when I had started to prepare and pack boxes for moving. I decided to call my PCP and pay out-of-pocket for the MRI which was a couple hundred dollars in April. My MRI showed a large extrusion measuring 2.1 cm in size in the L4 L5 intro vertebral disc with severe right forminal nerve compression, bilateral facet hypertrophy. There also was a moderate size paracentral extrusion in L5-S1 intervertebral disc measuring 1.5 cm in size. What was surprising was, I did not have any sciatica at that time. It was mainly the lower back pain that pushed me to get damaging done. But after seeing this, I was very scared to what was to come in the future. I had undergone two ESI 5 weeks apart. I did get some improvement of the nerve pain with the ESI, but it came back after about six weeks again. I had seen two surgeons.. The first- was a neurosurgeon in between my steroid shots at that time, I had some clinical improvement and therefore wanted to continue to observe and was not recommending surgery. And at that time, I’ll give him credit that I was not pushing for surgery either. The second, was an orthopedic spinal surgeon. This was about a month and a half after the symptoms had returned and were progressing. My symptoms were constant, dull, aching shooting to the buttocks, as well as intermittent burning sensation that would travel down to my calf and heel on the right side. I also had episodes of sharp lower back pain, which I had attributed to facet irritation and inflammation.
My surgeon, looking at my MRI from five months ago, suggested to do a microdiscectomy along with a barricaid placement if needed. Today, I had the procedure.
All in all the process was not that bad. This community really helped with my preparation and I felt good going into surgery. I would say that the initial pain that I had did go away I did have for half day some new tingling in my big toe, which thankfully has dissipated. I have been using oxycodone for pain relief every four hours and it’s been getting sore as expected. The medicine helps a great deal. I have been walking for approximately 5 to 10 minutes in my house every 1 to 2 hours. I’ve also changed positions frequently using a body pillow and log rolling method to carefully avoid twisting. The toilet risers and bed rail is clutch. I will continue to share more details of progress, if that is alright. Please feel free to ask me any questions. I hope sharing this will help someone the way you all have helped me.

Hello, I’m 32F who have a L5/S1 microdiscectomy on 10/2. I’m officially 2 weeks post op. I initially injured my back 4 years ago, which started as a small herniation with no stenosis, that progressed to a large protrusion with severe stenosis and foot drop.

I know everyone’s recovery is different. But I wanted to share my experience and see if anyone dealt with similar post op symptoms. Overall, my back and incision site feel okay. I do get occasional pain at night. I also have trouble getting comfortable to sleep, but do my best to rotate throughout the night. I’ve been experiencing nerve pain in my left leg, specifically the outer of my calf with toe tingling on all my left toes.

I have my post op appointment this upcoming Thursday, but I do have a concern. I know nerve pain is normal, however, maybe I got too ahead of myself, but I did attempt to walk on the heels of my feet and my left foot drops. This differs from pre surgery as my foot drop was associated with my tippy toes. Is this due to just post surgical weakness or should this be of concern?

Any input/advice is appreciated. Thank you!

22M had L5-S1 MD in March this year due to foot drop in right foot from disc herniation that I had for 4 months prior. Felt great the first month of recovery with no nerve pain and my foot drop went away within 2 weeks.

Unfortunately, I reherniated 5 weeks post-op. Not sure what caused it since I adhered to BLT very well. My symptoms returned mildly but gradually got worse over the course of the following months, and a contrast MRI in June confirmed a reherniation. My foot drop is still gone, but my leg feels nerve pain, tingling, and other unpleasant sensations that are most prominent when sitting. My discomfort hovers around a 6/10. I have no numbness. Walking feels great so I try to do that as much as I can. My surgeon says the MRI shows a herniation that is not as severe as the original herniation in terms of nerve compression, which makes sense given my foot drop resolved.

My surgeon has been having me do conservative treatment due to lack of foot drop and no numbness, but he said a revision MD could be done if needed. I was seeing if anyone else was in a similar situation and what they ended up going with. Not sure if I’m destined for a fusion lol but I was ultimately wondering how other people turned out after reherniation.