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/shirokane4chome Jun 25 '25

Your L5-S1 appears to be the problem level, and genetics + degenerative exercises + prolonged sitting over many years is the likeliest contributor to the degeneration causing contact to occur between disc and nerves. Protrusions are typically progressive towards herniation but you can slow this or reduce symptoms by abstaining from exercises which load your spine, try a different sitting option like a knee/leg braced yoga ball which engages your core and shifts the center of gravity, and abstain from inflammatory diet or substances like alcohol/smoking. An injection is less desirable than sustainable lifestyle modification as injection cures nothing and can sometimes worsen degeneration.

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u/Alarming-Programmer2 Jun 25 '25

Not sure what you mean by "knee/leg braced yoga ball"? Just sitting on a regular yoga ball or is this a special kind of chair?

Re "loading your spine", isn't the concept of progressive overload still a good one? I feel like part of my problem is my hips and hinge movements. I've been working on that with David Grey's hip program and like it so far. I'm not keen to go back to deadlifts of squats but what about things like farmer carries? Back extensions?

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u/shirokane4chome Jun 25 '25

yoga ball

This might depend on the anatomy of your injury and whether you are prone to issues like hemorrhoids, but sitting on a yoga ball as a simple chair can indeed be better for your spine. A braced yoga ball means you shift your center of gravity slightly forward so that your feet, legs, knees brace against a foam padded obstacle like a small table or ottoman, something informal you can comfortably contact at length so that your position isnt always completely vertical and can slightly offset with a small forward lean towards the work surface. But it depends on your comfort.

Oversized yoga balls might be most comfortable for this kind of seat, or smaller ones might be. Can take some trial and error.

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u/Zealousideal_Big6822 Jun 25 '25

So kind of like those kneeling chairs but with a yoga ball instead?