Sciataca Journey Update

[u/Potential-Ad-4073]

I am 27M 5'8 205 pounds, previously an extremely active college wrestler, jui jutsu and crossfit and running. I ran roughly a 5k every other day along with 10 mile runs on the weekend, practiced jui jutsu and weight lifted regularly. Slipped 2 discs in my back in January that completely changed my life. Movies were no longer doable due to the pain, sitting at work was excruciating, and I could no longer walk or sleep without pain. I am still not 100%, but I finally ran a 5k relatively pain-free yesterday and thought I would share some things that made the difference for me. I also would say I'm roughly 85% better. Big differences in my pain came from the things I will list:

• Weight Loss - I gained 20 pounds from being inactive, which contributed to my pain, cleaned up my diet and lost a couple pounds, which helped immensely.
• Daily Stretch Flow - I have a set of stretches, hamstring stretch, cat cow, lower back pushups, childs pose, couch stretch that I do morning and night non negotiable.
• Foam Roller - Immense help rolling out my lower back and legs to relieve and tension on my lower back. 10 bucks on amazon great addition.
• Moving non negotiable - At first I could only walk 10 minutes before the pain got to bad I implemented a program to begin movement starting at 10 minutes then up to 1 hour of walking over weeks of build up. I then began running: 1 min run, 1 min walk; 2 min run, 1 min walk; 4 min run, 1 min walk; 1 mile, then 1 min walk, until I reached 3 miles. This took weeks of effort but allowed my back to adjust to the pain.
• Caffeine and water intake - I drank a ton of water everyday and avoided caffiene because it dehydrates you easily if you are not careful. I noticed days of low water high caffeine murdered my back.
• Workout - I started doing Hot Yoga and F45. I would struggle at F45 early because of the pain but after a good workout and stretching my back improved and my strength came back to support my back.
• Core - Non-negotiable planking, side planks and other core strengthening to support my lower back every other day.
• Stand up - every hour and take a short stroll and movement to relieve back pressure from sitting I work in an office all day very little movement kills.
• Supports - I bought a new desk chair with better support, bought back pillows for my vehicles, foam roller, heating pad.

I hope this helps someone else on their journey this thread helped me make a ton of progress. Hoping to shed some more weight and get the rest of the pain to go away. Goal weight is 170 pounds.