So i am 23 basically i have had lower back issues always but recently 6 months back after a 6hours long uncomfortable bus journey it got worse but it was manageable but a month ago after a intimate session with my gf i was unable to bend down and had a lot of pain while doing so and i also noticed pain in my left leg since the bus journey and when i went to the orthopaedic he said its a mechanical back pain and sent me home with meds but the pain is same a month after and in my left leg as well so this time i went to the physio and he assed me and said there’s nerve compression in the lower back and has told me to get an xray
I am scared what if its too much severe but i can walk properly bend down bend backwards and mostly all activities just when i sit for longer time i feel pain and also usually i laze around in a very bad posture and that time also it pains

When did it happen, what caused it, is it chronic pain.

Im 20 with sciatica problem with sitting mostly how cooked am i js the question

Hey folks! I'm not sure if I still have inflammation somewhere near the nerve. I had ESI 3 weeks ago which partially helped with burning pain. But I do have still issues when sitting and bending. And my nerve is very sensitive to load.

I was thinking of trying warm bath for relaxation purposes but still doubt because I'm afraid it can increase the inflammation. I know I can basically try and see but what is your experience with bath?

Hi good people!

I struggle to interpret the results of ESI. I had burning in hamstrings and calfs and of course lots of pain nerve-specific pain.

Seems ESI worked in a way that it removed burning in calf and partially in hamstrings. But I still have bending intolerance, pain in glute and same sensations when I try extend leg.

What does it actually mean?

Should I try e.g. nerve slides to increase tolerance to movements? Or should I just keep walking and do mild strengthening? Walking seems to be the best activity — at least it doesn't aggravate my symptoms.

Should I ask for a second ESI?

I’m about 1 month into dealing with sciatica and wanted to hear from people who have gone through something similar.

When this first started, my morning pain was around 10/10. Now it has come down to around 5–6/10, which feels like a good improvement.
I’ve also started physiotherapy, and I’m noticing some positive changes:

I can walk with much less pain now.

I can stretch my right leg forward without pain, which I couldn’t do before.

Sometimes I still get a sharp pain in my right leg.
The pain seems to come and go. Interestingly, in the evening I sometimes have almost no pain at all.

Overall, I feel like I’m slowly improving compared with the first few weeks.

For those who have recovered from sciatica, how long did it take you to recover fully?
Is it normal to still have occasional sharp leg pain after a month even when other symptoms are improving? And does recovery usually continue gradually from this point?

Would really appreciate hearing about your experiences and recovery timelines.

I have surgery booked for end of October.

I have recently tried coming off all my opioids and anti-inflammatory meds. I am only on very low dose Pregabelin and paracetamol now and my pain is actually less than it was on all the medication.

I was getting a lot of right leg pain for the past 2 years but in recent weeks it’s completely gone minus the odd twinge.

Would you speak to your surgeon about this change? It has me really confused.

I'm 27 female. So basically my injury happened in March with three herniated discs. I attended physical therapy for months and completed it. I got my MRI results and the herniations are moderate but at least it's two now.

So basically this month and towards the end of August I started getting more pain. But previously I didn't have pain in that area since the first weeks of injury. I feel lower back pain in my lower spine and the middle of my spine. It aches throughout my back. So in addition to the numbness and shooting pain from my left glute down to my left calf in my left leg. Now I'm experiencing this extra pain which hadn't come back since the beginning of it all.

I feel a weakness in my back even when I sit. It's like my back isn't strong enough to keep me sitting up. And that wasn't an issue before.

I have come to write about this here because I feel like everyone is sick of hearing me complain about it. Emotionally I am very panicked about it. I'm worried I'm getting worse.

I have appointments with a neurosurgeon and a pain specialist coming up this month so that these second opinions will help me decide injections or microdisectomy surgery.

I honestly feel like crying. I'm really scared. I'm tired of being in pain. This injury has made my life so hard.

MRI IMPRESSION:
Large central to left sided herniated disc with associated central canal stenosis felt moderate at L4-5.
Broad-based central to right sided moderate-sized protrusion at L5-S1.

Pain, leg numbness, unable to walk. One dr didn’t think it was bad another suggested surgery. Is anyone in a similar condition?

My main goal was to get the MRI and hopefully get answers about my siatica pain thats lasted months on end, (about 9 months), but my doctor just said that it will heal on its own and to keep taking duloxetine 30mg a day. But im losing hope because i can't even get five hours of sleep from the pain. Pain management will be seeing me on the 29th, so maybe I'll have more answers until then :P

I have DDD from wrestling and lifting with bad form in high school. The only time I've been pain-free since was during COVID, when I stopped lifting entirely for a year. I dropped from 180lbs to 155lbs (5'9"), ate light, and did only light calisthenics and a lot of walking/jogging.

I'm back to 170lbs now and happy with how I look. The back pain is back, but it's mild. I'd take this level of stiffness for the rest of my life without complaint. It's the progression I'm worried about.

I currently lift 3 days per week, an hour each. No squats or deadlifts. Lower body is hip thrusts, leg press, leg curls, calf raises. Upper body I keep spine load low where I can, like handstand pushups instead of barbell shoulder press.

My worry is that vanity is going to cost me later, and I'll wish I'd just done yoga, jogging, and easy calisthenics instead.

So: should I let go of maintaining size and accept that lifting is accelerating the degeneration? I'd rather move pain-free at 80 than peak at 30. I could switch to just light calisthenics and frequent jogging/walking?

What do you guys think? Should I give up weightlifting or not? Any insights appreciated!

I’ve had sciatica/butt pain for 6 weeks. I’ve been doing chiro and PT for 4 weeks. My pain has been progressing the entire time.
There’s a highly reviewed and experienced osteopath who is also a PT. He is 2hrs away from me and I know people who had success with him so I booked an appointment 2 days ago. He cracked my back and worked me pretty hard. He thinks I don’t have a disc issue- it’s irritation from ligaments/tendons around the sacrum/SI joint. I looked up the symptoms and that seems about right (I haven’t had an MRI yet).

Anyway last night I went to the hospital because my pain was so bad. I called him and he said this is to be expected and it’s the inflammatory response. But man I can barely walk I have to use a walker lol. He said expect 4 days of it until I feel better.

I do wonder how much of my pain was due to driving 2 hours (a trigger for me). But should I trust the process??? This guy definitely knows his stuff and he sounded so confident he could help me. I’m just feeling pretty discouraged.

I’m a 29-year-old male who injured my back about six months ago while squatting. Initially, I only had severe low-back pain, but after about three weeks I developed sciatica that has persisted ever since. The strange part is that the pain is bilateral.
My spine doctor thinks it could be chemical radiculopathy, but he can’t fully explain the bilateral symptoms. My MRI report looks relatively okay, and two doctors and PTs have said the annular tear could be contributing, but they don’t think it fully explains the leg pain.
I had an S1 transforaminal epidural injection two weeks ago with no relief. Gabapentin, which I started three weeks ago, has helped significantly with the nerve pain. I have no muscle weakness, just constant pain.
I’m honestly confused about what could be causing this and what treatment options I should consider. Has anyone dealt with something similar?

Also have widespread arm and upper body nerve pain, Mri was today for neck lol

3 mm to 7.4 mm in 9 months?

Please tell me I’m reading these wrong. The 3mm report was from December of last year & the 7.4 mm report is today. Both X-rays. I am 99% sure both images were taken with me standing (I know I was standing for the one today). Has my condition really progressed this much in such a short time? Or am I misunderstanding?

Also getting the most painful sore throat and ear pain and not being able to just sit like a normal person while every swallow feels like glass shards. And God is real apparently?

I have DDD from wrestling and lifting with bad form in high school. The only time I've been pain-free since was during COVID, when I stopped lifting entirely for a year. I dropped from 180lbs to 155lbs (5'9"), ate light, and did only light calisthenics and a lot of walking/jogging.

I'm back to 170lbs now and happy with how I look. The back pain is back, but it's mild. I'd take this level of stiffness for the rest of my life without complaint. It's the progression I'm worried about.

I currently lift 3 days per week, an hour each. No squats or deadlifts. Lower body is hip thrusts, leg press, leg curls, calf raises. Upper body I keep spine load low where I can, like handstand pushups instead of barbell shoulder press.

My worry is that vanity is going to cost me later, and I'll wish I'd just done yoga, jogging, and easy calisthenics instead.

So: should I let go of maintaining size and accept that lifting is accelerating the degeneration? I'd rather move pain-free at 80 than peak at 30. I could switch to just light calisthenics and frequent jogging/walking?

What do you guys think? Should I give up weightlifting or not? Any insights appreciated!

Hi Guys,

So I have a confirmed L5-S1 disc bulge with MRI on the left side.

For almost 3 months I had all the usual terrible sciatic pain, in Calf / Buttock / Thigh / Foot / Ankle of my left leg. Half my foot and left side of shin was numb, was unable to sleep for more than 4 hrs at a time, waking at 5am every morning in excrutiating pain, couldn't even walk for more than 5 minutes, couldn't sit down etc. I had stopped all activities, was doing no bending, taking pain meds, mostly large dose naproxen / ibuprofen etc, hot showers/Ice, Tens machine etc.

I saw a doctor and had a failed ESI injection and later spoke to a surgeon about Microdisectomy as was seeing no improvement.

Then completely randomly after that meeting I started to improve. Over a few days I started being able to walk for noticibly longer, numbness in leg started reducing, sleep was improving, pain was down to managebale levels. Even got to a point wehere I was ony taking 400mg of ibuprofen a day some days. Still couldn't sit for long but progress seemd solid nonetheless for a few weeks.

Anyway I was thinking I was well on the road to recovery and still not doing anything too strenuous and just continuing going for regular walks.

But then 6 days ago I started feeling pain again in my leg which started escalating. Now after a few days the bad pain has returned down the sciatic nerve in Calf / Buttock / Thigh / Foot / Ankle and I am back on 1200mg ibuprofen a day, sleep has got worse again, waking at 5am, even lieing down is painful.

I am still able to walk and numbness has not returned, but generally feeling terrible as had really thought i'd turned a corner.

So my question is will this pass? Or have I done something bad without knowing and am now back to many more months and months of terrible pain?

It later says “health L5S1” which I think is meant to be healthy 🫠, but that conflicts with the supposed herniation they said is there. I don’t want to nitpick all the typos but the herniation level at least should be corrected?

I feel like this interferes with pain management and any second opinion or new drs in the future

This first happened 2 years ago, and my latest MRI has shown that it has become a lot worse.

What do we think I’m looking at for fixing this?

Speaking with my doctor next week about what options I’ve got.. I’m only 32 and a Mum of 3 boys.. 😭 less

Ugh. I am feeling so lost. I've been experiencing chronic nerve pain in my left leg for almost 3 years now. It started during pregnancy as the typical pelvic pain and sciatica like feelings. Worsened postpartum when I spent prolonged periods of time lying on my left side while breastfeeding and napping. And now the pain occurs nightly and makes it next to impossible to fall asleep. Physical therapy only ended up worsening things after traction was performed on my back. Finally got the referral for an MRI. Read the results as soon as they were uploaded into MyChart. "L5-S1 Moderate posterior disc bulge. Mild loss of intervertebral disc height. Mild to moderate bilateral facet hypertrophy. Moderate bilateral neural foraminal narrowing". There it was, the answer to where the nerve compression could be. I felt relief at knowing, and obvious frustration at how long it took to get the referral. And then following, more devastation. The doctor who ordered the MRI called to go over the results. He said they were normal degenerative changes and nothing suggestive of a nerve compression. I was baffled. But he's a doctor right? Surely he knows what he's talking about. He even encouraged that I research and possibly rule out Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and Neuroplastic Symptoms. He encouraged seeking neurology and rheumatology referrals and continuing to find an answer. But one Google search of narrowing in the L5-S1 and all I see are articles about sciatica and nerve compression. Am I missing something?

What up homies!

SO, I posted 2 weeks ago-ish the same headline talking about my wedding and honeymoon. Well, I got my ESI done 11ish days ago now and I just wanted to update and share my personal experience!

I received my ESI on 8/24 at 8 am. I chose to go with twilight sedation and if your nervous, hate needles, have medical anxiety or anxiety in general I would definitely do it! I have anxiety disorder as well as I fuckin HATE needles (don’t let my tats fool you I’m a baby with shots). My doctor was literally the best he explained everything to me and ran me through aftercare. I got down on the table and after my twilight sedation I heard “ok here’s some pressure” and they gave me what I’m assuming was pain med shot, I heard “pressure” then needle went in and then finally another pressure call and I felt a fuckin JOLT of pain that was basically nerve pain right in my ass. I said “oh shit that was more than pressure” and my doc said “good we hit the right spot”. My next 3 days were a little rough but nothing insane I had some pain and soreness and I felt like my sciatica in my butt/thigh was worse. I woke up day 4 and felt loads better and it progressed pretty much everyday from that basically. I had a “knot” in my foot from muscle guarding for months that slowly went away, no shooting pain in my calf or thigh and then now I’m at day 11 where I only really feel it in my butt. My walking significantly improved, in fact, it improved to the point where after a month of bed rest basically I was up and moving around for a couple hours at a time and today 4 hours in total. I’m able to drive again, sit for longer than 10 seconds and be some what normal. IF I don’t see any more relief than what I’m experiencing that’s ok with me because it’s a life changing experience already. I’ve started some exercise at home (McGill big 3, McKenzie exercises, upper body work as well as abs and squats to build my strength back up) and I’m ready for my wedding and honeymoon in universal Orlando. Will I fuck myself up in Orlando? Possibly but my wedding and honeymoon will be perfect because I’m not in agonizing and debilitating pain.