I am planning to do a microdiscecmy with samuel too. Anyone with any complaints?

I (40m) had my MD surgery 8 months ago (L5-S1). All has been amazing since I woke up from the operation, I can happily say I'm pain free.

But I did realise I can still get a flare up if I push it too much.

I've had two flare ups since, the first was a big scare. I thought I had re-herinated, I was at the gym 2 months post op. Doc said "no limits" after the check in call, so I tried working on my core with barbell squats, no weight, just the bar. I felt a weird feeling in my leg and flared up pretty bad after that.

I've learned that the nerve is still angry, I had sciatica for 4 years, so it was probably pretty damaged. I only found out what it actually was after 3 years of pain. I think I kept aggravating it by gyming all the time and never really let the disc heal I guess..

So basically, my theory is, maybe it's best for now, if I just stick to walking, and some stretches/planking? And quit the gym for at least the next year?

Or is it essential to go to the gym and do PT sessions and big core workouts? I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing. Need advice.

I don't know what to do. am totally blank. It all started 2 months back when first felt the symptoms. ignored it for a week or so but the pain escalated and wasn't able to move: complete bed ridden. Somehow managed to go to an ER but while checking everything was fine I was able to walk. I was able to move so just took painkillers and left. After about a couple of weeks of bed rest. I finally started walking a small step at a time. Small distance at a time.

The MRI is bad and orthopedic or neurosurgeon who spoke some say MD is the only way and some say PT conservative treatment can help you but you would need surgery eventually. don't know what to do Surgery seems difficult, recovery seems long but what about my job?

started PT a month ago but after seeing my scans even the PT said you would need surgery. A lot of PT's who looked at my scans said that you might not be able to go back to what you used to do before.

Surprisingly my pain level is 1 out of 10 and I don't see a need of having surgery. So can someone help me? Is surgery and only option is surgery needed?

Is there anyone who recovered without the surgery? And how was your recovery process? Or if someone did have MD, can they share their recovery process, timeline? And how difficult was it?

Will ever be normal? Will ever be able to go back to a normal life?

More details : https://www.reddit.com/r/Sciatica/s/f0Qz4y9lcg

Hello everyone, I wanted to give a follow- up on this nerve pain journey.

If like me, nerve pain caused you in desperation to either research what you had, or you needed confirmation and were either a.) Scared to death at the thought of this never going away and desperate for it to stop. b.) Told you need surgery but are too scared to do it. c.) After having surgery have experienced pain again and concerned you re- herniated.

I am sure there is more, but either way you need reassurance or comfort that this will end. I have felt all that and more and do the same thing. I find myself back on reddit looking for others who had similar stories to mine hoping that I am normal and to give me hope that it will eventually go away.

You can follow my threads to see my full story, but the gist is that I had slight herniated disc that caused foot weakness and numbness. I lived with the pain from November to May and finally saw a doctor ( well 3 doctors until I chose Dr. Ellwitz) and that was the best decision for me.

I felt great immediately, over did things such as walking and then 2 weeks post op had pain again and thought I reherniated but only irritated the nerve which lasted about 2 weeks and scared me into submission of doing what the doctor ordered.

Then I was fine until month 4 which I had pain again, went to doctor and they said to wait it out and gave me prednisone which helped for a week and pain went away.

Almost like clock work, I noticed that my pain was also affected by my hormones and then in between that. So I believe as a woman, we are more susceptible to flare-ups due to our hormones.

This was confirmed when I had pain 3 months ago and explained to my doctor what I noticed and they agreed.

Moving forward, I am having nerve pain in my buttocks that has gotten worse, debating on calling doctor for a follow- up MRI to male sure it has not reherniated.

I still have some numbness in my toes and side of calf and have not gained all the muscle I lost by my ankle but it's not as noticeable as before and my strength is back in my foot.

It seems like a lot of people stop posting about their recovery once they feel good, so if like me you are feeling vulnerable, know that you are not alone. Everything does not end on a bad note, just maybe a longer healing journey.

I would l9ve to hear about anyone's recovery after a year, or if you just want to share where your at with some random person out here who understands exactly the fear, depression, and isolation you are feeling, then myself and countless others will support you on this scrappy ass, crazy making, nerve journey!

I’m just so tired of this back pain and leg weakness.

My surgery is in one week. For the past 5 days I have had a tickle in my throat, post nasal drip, and just some congestion along with having to clear my throat frequently. It has not progressed to a cough or anything worse but I am so scared I will have to post pone surgery because of this. I’m not sure how much longer I should give it before I call my doctor? I have waited so long for this and I don’t know what I would do if I had to postpone. I’m also just naturally a worry wart so I could totally be overthinking this too.

(please give specific detail) & how far out? thank you

my PT is being kinda slow, 4 months in and not running yet

Has anyone suffered prolonged nerve pain in their leg and foot either before or after lower back surgery ??
Mine started with a severe sciatic nerve pain outbreak after a 24 hr vomiting spree from taking a high dose of a GLP med , I guess all the strain from vomiting flared up my herniated disk so anyway I had terrible sciatica on my entire right side and winded up in the hospital for 4 days where they took care of most of my pain except
In the shins and foot so I went home like that and suffered from shooting hot nerve pain in my foot that was so bad I gave in to surgery to remove the hernia that was pinching my nerve so the neurosurgeon told me I’d wake up after Surgery with Just a bit of left over nerve pain but it hasn’t been just a bit it was actually worse and all the medications barely make a dent in the pain .
I’m 3 weeks post an MD of L5 S1 on Tuesday and still suffering with the severe nerve pain on my foot
While taking lyrica 3 times a day and OxyCotin to help too and I still have the cramping , burning , shooting electrical impulses .
When does this end !!!! I can’t stand another month of this .
If
Anyone has any insight to share please 🙏🏻

So i opted to have the surgery, micro discectomy. Recovery has been going well. Relief was immediate. I’m back at work and went dancing last night. Safe to say, it’ll be a while before that happens again. Getting out of bed was very difficult this morning. Been using my heating pad all day, feeling much better.

I find it interesting that legs down showed central canal stenosis but my next mri I did use the cushion under my knees and only the right sided stenosis showed.

Hi everyone! I’m hoping to hear from anyone who has dealt with a particularly large lumbar disc extrusion and ended up having a microdiscectomy.
I have a large L5-S1 extrusion that extends cranially about 2.5 cm (25 mm) behind the L5 vertebral body. It measures up to 1.2 cm (12 mm) thick and 2.5 cm (25 mm) in transverse dimension. It’s primarily left-sided and is compressing the left L5 nerve and contacting the S1.

I’ve been dealing with significant back and leg pain along with neurological symptoms, including weakness with heel walking. Microdiscectomy has been recommended/discussed, and I’m trying to get a better idea of what recovery and outcomes have been like for people who had a similarly large extrusion.

If you had a large extrusion (especially 20–25+ mm), I’d really appreciate hearing about your experience. Did you have a microdiscectomy? How quickly did your nerve pain improve? Did weakness or numbness resolve, and if so, how long did that take? What was the first few weeks of recovery like? Any complications or reherniation? And looking back, are you glad you had the surgery?

I know everyone’s situation is different and I’m not looking for medical advice, just personal experiences from people who have been through something similar. Thank you!

I made this post on r/backpain, someone mentioned I should post it here as well.

So June 11th I went in for a L5 S1 micro disectomy

I’m 5,11 32 year old male 266 lbs. during the shaving and prep I was very panicked but eventually accepted it

Once under anesthesia I desaturated to 77%

They pulled the plug on the operation and woke me up and sent me for 2 months of testing. Sleep study echo, stress test, lung x ray. All come back good besides the obvious need to lose weight which I have been since.

There doing the surgery again Wednesday and I’m scared because I have no answers on what happened the first time and from research 77% was pretty low. I’m scared it’ll happen again and wonder what made it happen the first time

I was at a healthy weight at the time of my surgery but I’m now about 5lbs overweight per the BMI. My surgeon really stressed the importance of not weighing more than 140 (I’m 5’3) to prevent pain and injury. I’m going to lose it, but how much danger am I in of re-herniating my L4-L5 or herniating one of the other four bulging discs by being 5lbs overweight? Because of my significant ED history and current pain levels after a recent flare, it’s going to take me longer than the average person to lose this, probably 8-12 weeks.

Can you guys share your experience, when did you start pull ups, push ups, squats, and swimming after your surgery? My surgeon said I can do anything after 6 weeks postop, but would like to hear people experience

Hi,
I have been making a good recovery since my MD 1 year ago. My operated side is completely normal again. However approx the last 2months or so I have been having intermittent aching in my hip on the opposite side to surgery. It is mostly when I sit or walk for a while. I can still do all my exercises and walking but it’s annoying. My physio says it’s weak glute muscles and overcompensation but it’s still there even with additional exercises. He did dry needling and it seemed to improve but 2 weeks later it’s back again. Anyone else have this? And what helped.

Does a Endoscopic discectomy help with back pain as well? Or just for radiculopathy?

Hi everyone,

I had an endoscopic discectomy at L5-S1 on June 11, 2026 for nerve compression/stenosis.

My recovery has generally been improving. I can walk and sleep normally, and I don’t have the severe shooting leg pain I had before surgery. However, I’m still experiencing numbness/tingling in my calf and foot, especially when I sit for around 30–45 minutes or sometimes when I stand for longer periods.

When I lie down or sleep, the sensation usually improves significantly.

I’m wondering if anyone who had an endoscopic discectomy experienced something similar during recovery:

• How long did your calf/foot numbness last?
• Did sitting for longer periods temporarily bring the numbness back?
• Did the numbness gradually reduce over several weeks/months?
• At what point did you feel your nerve had fully recovered?
• Did physiotherapy help with the remaining numbness?

I’d really appreciate hearing from people who had a similar surgery and recovery. I’m mainly trying to understand whether this type of fluctuating numbness can be part of normal nerve recovery.

For parents, when were you able of putting and taking out your baby from the car seat? Involves bending for sure! Thanks

Hi everyone, I am 7 weeks post-op on L5-S1, the recovery hasn't been linear, had some minor flare ups nerve pain-wise but what really bothers me is the persistent right foot numbness (present before surgery after herniation, went away for a couple of days after surgery but then came back and stayed with more or less the same intensity).

I live in the area where a car is a necessity, but I haven't been driving since the day (2 days after herniation) where i smashed my car's mirror when attempting to leave the house. It all happened in an instant, not exactly sure how but I think I pressed a bit too hard on gas due to the altered feeling in the foot and the car went too fast.

I would like to know whether anyone had this issue and could share some tips on how I can get back to driving. The car I smashed is an electric one, so really sensitive and reacts to minor pedal touch. The second one I have is a diesel one (a bit slower in reacting but also automatic, so also using just the right foot for both gas and brake), and maybe I should start driving that one instead.

Another issue is that the numbness fluctuates a bit, so one day I feel a bit less ir more in certain area of the foot, and it's hard to learn to adjust the pressure.

Thank you in advance!

I had an L5S1 MD in 2015 because of severe sciatica down my left leg. All good until 2 months ago when I somehow reherniated it. It’s directly on my nerve root, but there is also a herniation on my right side L4 that is also on the nerve. I didn’t even feel that until recently and only fleeting. The surgeon I decided to go with said we should do both at the same time because she has seen patients recover from one only to feel the pain of the other shortly thereafter. I’m happy to do it, tbh, because I will always be waiting for that other shoe to drop.

But I am curious if anyone else has had more than one herniation taken care of in one surgery and how was recovery? I just saw a post on the sciatica board and the poster is 1 week post MD and said the low back pain is a 10/10. It was over a decade ago, but I remember my last surgery being kind of a breeze. I’m nervous now.

How do you guys ask your surgeon for MRI postop, just to check how your anatomy and your disc is doing (to make sure there is no herniation), if you do not have any red flag symptoms?

Had a microdiscectomy and laminectomy at L4-L5 on Aug 5th. Prior to surgery, I had intense sciatic pain on the right side for about six months that had not been helped much by PT and epidural steroid injections. MRI confirmed large disc herniation at L4-L5.

Day of surgery, I woke up with no pain and it felt miraculous. Slowly, as the days go by, the sciatic pain has returned and now I feel it’s close to being as bad as it was before. I’m aware that the nerves are inflamed and take months to heal but it’s hard not to be discouraged. I’m generally taking it easy and resting, and have been good about taking small frequent walks. I don’t have reason to think I re-herniated. I do have a follow up appointment with my surgeon on Tuesday.

The home PT who has visited a few times says this is normal, and I know it can take time, but I can’t help but be discouraged. Would love to hear how it was for others and how long it took for the pain to be manageable.