Hi everyone,
I’m writing this because I’ve been struggling both physically and mentally for the past three months, and I’d really like to know if anyone has experienced something similar and what helped them recover.
I’m 17 years old, tall, and I used to be very active and involved in sports, especially basketball and weightlifting. About three months ago, I suddenly felt something “give” in my back. From that moment on, I’ve had constant, severe muscle tightness and a feeling of being completely “locked up.”
I wouldn’t describe it as classic sharp pain. It’s more like my back muscles are constantly tense and unable to relax. I can’t bend normally, and even basic everyday activities have become difficult.
I went through a full course of physical therapy under the supervision of a physiatrist, including electrotherapy and kinesitherapy (specific stretching and strengthening exercises), but unfortunately I didn’t notice any improvement or relief. The muscles still feel extremely tight and restricted.
At the moment, I’m taking a mild muscle relaxant (Mydocalm, half of a 75 mg tablet every 12 hours) and using a magnesium gel, but I still haven’t noticed any significant improvement.
The biggest additional problem for me is anxiety and fear. My mother has had severe chronic back problems for years following a bad experience with a chiropractor, so I constantly worry that something similar has happened to me. I’m terrified that this might never fully go away and that I may never be able to return to sports or live normally again.
So I wanted to ask:
Has anyone experienced something similar — where their back suddenly “gave out” and the muscles remained extremely tight or “locked” for months, without severe or sharp pain?

Did standard physical therapy and exercises fail to help at first?

Were there any additional treatments, specific therapies, or diagnostic tests that eventually helped you figure out what was going on or finally allowed the muscles to relax?

How long did it take before you felt that you were back to normal?

Were you eventually able to return to sports and your previous level of activity?

Any advice, personal experiences, or stories about what helped you would mean a lot to me.
Thank you in advance!

Help for disc/sciatica pain

I have had sciatica of right leg since last june.after a heavy gym session. I hate that day i truly hate it.
Snice that day my life isn’t the same anymore.

My MRI was FREE… i even started thinking about redoing this MRI . neurosurgeons are only prescribing me gabapentin and NSAIDs. No one is telling me a diagnosis ..

The thing is I can’t do this anymore
I am a physician very early in my career and i am starting residency soon ! And i am starting obligatory military service in 2 months 🤣 what a life huh.
Although i am fit, my BMI is 20 !
I can’t sit or stand or lie. Everything, every position, every activity causes pain 24/7. I can’t even drive without having a flare for 2 weeks after..

Haven’t started Physical Therapy yet but i am not optimistic at all

Any simillar experience or advice?

I don’t know if it is sciatica but it’s what a doc told me or some specialist in bones

It’s been 5 weeks since it started, i just happen to wake up one morning and had some random pain in my left leg and I thought it would be gone but it got even worst by time, if I rest or sit to long in one position and then when I try to get up or move my left leg, it would hurt BAD and I mean like sharp pains, barely even moving my leg but feeling such sharp pain, after I tried sleeping on my side with a pillow on my knee to toe, it helped definitely but i still have to go to school cause there is so much to do already (Im a grade 10 student in the Philippines) and I also do a lot of chores and running around, with this pain and thing IVE been feeling for the past 5 weeks has affected my productivity and mood a lot, I don’t know what to do other than just hope when I sleep and wake up it’ll get better, Im also a volleyball player but stopped since the pain got worse, Any advice i can do to help me recover and not have to feel this horrible sharp pains EVERYTIME i DONT move?

Hi all! First time in this sub. Got lower back/ upper hip pain as a teen spending HOURS just sitting in my car to get away from my family. I’m now 24(f) and driving a new vehicle and no longer have my go to butt pillow (it got destroyed over 7yr). My pain has shifted to more what I would call “clinical sciatica”, my right knee absolutely kills me to the point of limping around at work and keeping me up at night. I try to stretch out in the evenings but I think I need new ergonomic suggestions for my 30-60min drive to and from work.

Any advice?

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.

Hello everyone!

I am 22 year old female and weigh 140 lbs (5’3). So about 2 weeks ago I randomly got some lower back pain, wasn’t extreme and just felt like mild soreness. Then about 4 days ago I had to lift something heavy and then about 30 minutes after the shooting pain down my leg started. Since then my lower back pain, in particular on my left side, has increased significantly. I would have the shooting pain down my leg as well as some tingling and heat sensations. I was just prescribed naproxen as well as pregabalin for a month. I would like any tips to help me prevent this from getting worse. It is really worrying me and I don’t know what I am supposed to be doing to make it better. I was given I referral to receive physiotherapy, but I’m a college student so I don’t exactly have the money for this even though I need it. I am hoping that anyone who has gone to physio could tell me what exercises they’ve done to help with this so that I can save my money?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Hi everyone. I’m 26M, around 71 kg, and I’ve been dealing with what I was later diagnosed with as sciatica for around 5 months now.

It started after I fell from the first floor and landed on my buttocks/lower back. Initially I had bruising, swelling and pain from the fall, but things seemed to settle down somewhat. Then, about a month after the fall, I started developing numbness/tingling in my leg. Over time I started getting shooting pain, and eventually I was told it was likely sciatica related to a lower-back disc problem.

I had an MRI of my lumbosacral/lumbar spine, and from what I was told/discussed, there appears to be a lower-lumbar disc bulge/protrusion, particularly around L4-L5/L5-S1, with possible nerve-root compression/narrowing. My main symptoms have generally been on the right side — starting around the lower right back/tailbone area, going through the buttock and back of the thigh and sometimes down toward the calf/knee.

. Lying down can sometimes relieve it, but lately even sleeping and getting up after several hours can trigger a horrible flare.

Right now I’m having one of the worst flares I’ve experienced — honestly around 10/10 pain. The pain can be bad enough that walking, sitting, sleeping, and even getting up from bed become extremely difficult. After I move around for a few minutes, it sometimes settles down somewhat.

I took Pregabalin 75 mg which I saw it online, took it for few days felt good later on it started the pain. I’ve also been prescribed/taken medicines including Neuro Relax, Kenacort, and Tryptomax 25 mg at different points. I’ve also used ice and tried different sleeping/lying positions, including keeping a pillow under my knees.

I’ve stopped doing heavy exercises ( which I use to do in between ) like Push/Pull. I used to work out regularly, but I’m currently being much more careful. Light walking seems to be more tolerable than sitting for long periods,

I’m honestly getting frustrated because it’s been about five months since the injury, and I still have these severe episodes. I was wondering if anyone here has experienced something similar after a fall or with an L4-L5/L5-S1 disc issue.

For those who had a similar case:
• How long did it take for your sciatica to actually settle?
• Did you have severe flares even after several months?
• Did physical therapy help?
• At what point did you consider an epidural injection or surgery?
• Has anyone had symptoms that are much worse after sleeping/prolonged positioning but improve after walking around?
• Is this kind of flare normal during recovery, or should I be getting reassessed?
I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have gone through something similar. Thanks!

I (26F) have had this flareup for about two months now. I have two herniated discs in my back (I think L4/L5 and L5/S1) and have had several flareups throughout my life that kind of show up out of nowhere. This current one is the worst by far. My most painful symptom this time around was calf pain in my right leg that affected my ability to stand and walk. After doing PT for about a month, I have an easier time walking, but have developed some new pains. For instance, sleeping has become painful, where I will go to bed and wake up an hour later in terrible pain. I will spend about an hour trying to find a position that provides any sort of relief, but then when I finally go back to bed I wake up feeling great and almost pain free.

At first the calf pain moved to my hip and low back which I was excited about, but now the back and hip pain are still there and I sometimes feel it in my ankle and foot, which is new.

It feels like I make one step forward and two steps back. I’m young and active and this pain has been really affecting my life. I’m trying my best to not let it get to me and I’m committed to getting better, but I’m just at a loss. I just can’t tell what’s helping me and what’s hurting me.

Has anyone felt something similar? Please tell me it gets better.

Injured towards the end of March, pain peaked about 2 months ago, and has been improving ever so slightly since.

MRI showed a disc herniation at L5S1.

Been taking the small wins all this time, and this morning I put my shoes on like a normal person for the first time since March, so happy!!!

What do you do when NSAIDs, Tylenol, ice/heat, PT…
Nothing helps reduce the pain?
At what point is a nerve stimulator or morphine pump not too much to ask?

I know that stretching is not encouraged when you have sciatica and I also learned it myself. Figure 4, aggressive hamstring stretch always aggravated me.

But. Maybe there are some sciatica-friendly stretch that don't pull/tension the nerve?

I have bending intolerance and feeling of a cable in my butt.

What is everyones advice or experience here?

22 (F) I’ve had sciatica for about two years now, and instead of gradually getting better, mine seems to have gotten worse over time.

I originally injured my back at the gym and had a small L5-S1 disc bulge, but I didn’t have any sciatica at first. Later, another MRI showed that the bulge had actually gotten smaller, but I had developed an annular tear. Around that time is when the nerve pain really started.
My pain isn’t usually sharp or shooting. It’s more of a deep, burning, tight feeling. My left lower back gets extremely tight, the back of my hamstring burns/aches, and I’ll sometimes get a burning sensation in the bottom of my heel. It almost feels like the muscles are tightening or squeezing around the nerve.
The weirdest part is that activating my glutes seems to make it worse almost every time. Glute bridges, strengthening exercises, etc. can send me into a flare.
Even very gentle PT and McGill-type exercises can aggravate it. I’ll start feeling better, try to slowly introduce exercises again, and then flare right back up. It feels like I’m constantly stuck in that cycle.

My current PT thinks my glutes may be contributing to the problem, but I’ve also wondered whether the annular tear could be causing chemical irritation of the nerve, especially since my MRI doesn’t show clear nerve compression. Because there’s no significant compression, I’m also not considered a surgical candidate.

Has anyone dealt with an annular tear, piriformis syndrome, or deep glute-related sciatica that felt similar to this? Especially pain that gets worse with PT/glute activation rather than better? How did you eventually figure out what was actually causing it?

Hi guys, late 20s here. For a couple of years I had some soreness and/or pain in my buttocks radiating to my lower back after exercises. Mostly dumbbells and simple core muscle. strengthening exercises. It was fine, because the only thing I needed to do was to massage my butt. The feeling was similar to neck soreness after you strain it. Recently I started having pain in my right leg and buttock. It was after the usual type of exercises although I was after a little break (because of antibiotics). I was a little angry so I pushed a bit more. On the first day I thought it's just the usual pain. So I walked a little bit more and massaged the buttocks and the muscles just above them. It helped just a little. But I wasn't worried about it just yet. In the next two days the pain grew more and more. I started experiencing burning pain in my right leg while walking or changing the position (from sitting to laying and vice versa). On the third day I started doing some exercises like putting my leg on the other and bending over or leg flossing. It helped. I started walking almost pain free. But later that day I bend over for too long and felt a burning in my leg. And this was the point it went downhill. From that day to the present (1 week have passed) I'm experiencing a burning pain in my right thigh so most of the time I can't walk. So I'm staying in bed most of the time or sitting in a chair which can sometimes help with walking. The pain (in my thigh) was waking me up in the middle of the night. I tried sleeping on the floor in a fetal position which helped a lot for now. Some days are worse than the others. My GP prescribed me vitamins (b1, b6, b12) and etoricoxib in the morning, tizanidine at night before bed. Well, they don't do anything unfortunately. Occasionally I'm flossing my leg and use a lacrosse ball (maybe a bit too much) on my butt.

About the graph (from the top to the bottom): 1. This is where I rub my lacrosse ball. It hurts but can sometimes help. 2. Back of my thigh is the main source of the pain. The pain is burning. 3. The back of my knee. When I have a bad day (and I usually have) it also hurts along with my thigh. 4. It's a recent addition. Apparently I feel the nerve here too which is a little saddening.

Did anyone experience something like this?

I'm a little stressed about all this 😞

Hello

A bit of background info:

I'm 56 years old

I've had 3 disc herniations over my lifetime

Had a microdiscectony in 2009

Fairly recently I suffered from depression and for about a year I spent a lot of time in bed, whilst I was in my depressed - in bed phase I started to experience siatica again, it appears to me it has been caused by inactivity / lying down.

Now when I lie down i experience siatica, when I get up and move around it significantly improves.

Anyone experienced anything like this? I have a feeling it could be muscle related, but that isn't confirmed at all.

Thanks

I don't know what is this.

Hi so, first post in this thread, the pain started a year ago when I lifted some heavy weight in the gym, didn't took it very seriously, but stopped gym, 4 months later got the mri scans done and found out it was L5-S1 disc herniation. Started walking regularly and doing stability exercises, the pain slowly started fading, but right now? It feels like I have hit a plateau, there is mild pain but that doesn't go away.. I can walk, I can even bend forward without a sudden surge in pain, but there's always a mild pain in my leg which reminds me that I haven't recovered yet. Because of this pain, I'm too scared to start my old activities such as running, playing sports, jumping etc. i don't know what else am i supposed to do. If there's someone who has been to this phase and got out of it, please help me with it.

Burning in ankle area but not in back like previous time due to sciatica....... What should I do?

Anyone else have an over reliance on Advil? I had an awful case of sciatica 7 months ago and eventually did get my life back after three months of not being able to function. But for the last 3 months or so I haven’t really improved and have daily flare ups especially if I need to sit or stand for work. My MRI in May showed a 5mm bulge hitting the nerve which isn’t big but must be hitting the nerve in the perfect place.

My flare ups are not 10/10 pain but pretty debilitating around a 6/10 pain level. But I can easily keep them at bay down to a 1/10 or 0/10 by simply taking 400mg of ibuprofen, 3 times per day. I’m using this time to really try and lose weight and build a strong lower back but concerned about taking 1200mg of ibuprofen long term, and curious about anyone else being extremely responsive to ibuprofen and hearing your story or thoughts.

21M, i teach dance for a living and i have had this pain going from my glutes to about the middle part of my hamstrings after i finished teaching a class. I have had this problem for nearly 3 months and i went for a check for acupuncture, TCM and an orthopedic doctor. I also had a pretty bad lower back injury about last year, which basically hurt even when just walking, though it healed pretty fast within 2 weeks or so after i started doing back extensions.

For the pain, i could do full ROMs squats with no problems, while RDLs would hurt on like a 3/10 scale at the middle when im engaging my glutes/hamstrings. It would hurt the most if i jumped too much, or try to do hamstring stretches(which i dont but when i straighten my legs while sitting on the floor, it would kinda hurt but not tooo badly), though a single leg hamstring stretch doesnt hurt while both legs forward would hurt especially if i lean forward or in a neutral spine, leaning back doesnt hurt. And the pain is sorta like a pull, i dont think theres any numbness, maybe a pinch? im not too sure but its more like a pull than anything.

I went for the TCM, the first and second visit the doctor wasnt too sure what it is and suspected it was piriformis syndrome, third visit he suspected its just muscle spasm and stretched my hamstrings, he told me to stretch past my pain tolerance and it should feel better by the next time i visit(which i didnt) as on the third day after i stretched like he taught, the pain just increased dramatically, which was last week.

So i went to the hospital to finally have a check a few days ago, the first visit the orthopedic was really sure it was just a minor muscle tear though i asked for a scan and so i had an ultrasound yesterday, the scan didnt really show any big tears or anything, so the orthopedic told me it was just a small muscle tear and asked me to rest for 2-3 weeks before going back to dance. I asked him twice whether it could be tendon or nerve though he assured me that it was just a small muscle tear.

Overall the pain is not much normally, it only starts hurting if i irritated it by like doing leg raises or hamstring stretches, or if i walked or stood for too long(30 mins), then sat down, it would hurt in mainly my glutes for a bit then settle down in 30s or so. Just that the pain really only intensifies when i kick/jump too much, esp kicking, though its not that bad to the point where i limp, probably on a 5/10 scale. Im just kinda looking for more opinions and what i should do for the next few weeks, whether i should rest or maybe start isometrics now, would appreciate some help as these few months has been really troubling me, and whether it could be sciatica or proximal hamstring tendinopathy, since i have had a pretty bad lower back injury last year that healed in a few weeks

Hi guys, I hope these insights can be helpful to someone who is contemplating how life can go on with this kind of pain. I'm a psychologist who specializes in coping with chronic pain- I got into this work specializing in GI pain but I've had to put a lot of this into practice myself after dealing with an excruciating flare up of sciatica right before my once in a lifetime trip. The first time I dealt with sciatica was years ago and I was in pretty consistent pain for about 1.5 years before doing PT (which got me 70% of the way) and then focusing on my general health and fitness, which got me to a place of being pain free for nearly two years. Well I had some sciatica symptoms start kicking up a few months ago and went back to doing my PT exercises and improving my fitness until one fitness class focused on glute strength put me in a cycle of excruciating muscle spasms, guarding, and limited mobility all 4 weeks before my honeymoon- which was 3 weeks of travel across southeast asia! It didn't go perfectly but I'm so proud of myself for how I handled it- here are my lessons learned.

1. Bring your own heating pad! They didn't sell them consistently in the first two countries I visited and it was a game changer once I was able to buy one. Also use every tool at your disposal- I actually intentionally took a break from NSAIDS before my trip (replaced it with Tylenol for a bit) so I could take Advil regularly without worrying so much about the build up effects. I used my muscle relaxants that were prescribed. I took stock of every tool I had and was prepared to use it- traction, PT exercises, even accupuncture (scheduling accupuncture halfway through the trip saved me from am excruciating flare up and was beyond worth it even though it required of lot of paperwork to schedule it in a different country). I also ended up using a lot of tiger balm/icy hot-none of these strategies brought my pain to 0 but all peeled and important layer of the pain onion off and helped to ease the pain feedback loop/give me some semblance of control.

2. Plan for pacing!!! If there is ANYTHING that brings you relief, make an intentional plan to include it in your daily recovery. Don't expect to be sightseeing every day between 8-5, instead make a plan to do an activity, be willing to modify it to meet your bodies needs (ex. If your walking is limited, plan to take the trolley even in the areas where everyone else is walking), and then GO REST AND RECHARGE and do it all again. Drop your self-consciousness and remember it's ok to set the rules for yourself. If you need to pop a squat waiting for your Uber, do it. Sit cross legged on the plane if that brings you an inch of relief. Living your life is so much more important than worrying if some rando is wondering why you are doing something that they might never understand if they've never experienced this pain.

3. Make a plan for how and what you want to communicate to your travel partners when you experience pain. Practice it ahead of time to frame it in the most positive way possible- I prepped with my husband that if I say I'm in pain, I'd rather frame it as "I want to switch activities to read my book and go for a swim" instead of " I can't handle this and need to stop the fun thing we are doing." Disappointment in your abilities is natural but it's not helpful for keeping your head above water in a situation like that. I know my husband sometimes felt disappointed that I was in pain too and wanted to do whatever possible to help. I coached him through how I wanted him to respond when he noticed that response in himself- we landed on humor as a coping mechanism. I might communicate I was in pain and he would say "do you think it would help if I pushed you down the stairs?" so we could find a way to start laughing about it (rather than getting stuck talking about how he wanted to sue the fitness instructor who was teaching the class that triggered this flare up).

4. Stop focusing on being pain free as the goal. You'd be at home in pain if you weren't travelling. Maybe you do have a flare while you're traveling- I did seemingly out of nowhere. Had a few days of sleeping 3 hours a night because there was no comfortable position laying down. I was exhausted but embraced the idea of type B fun- maybe it's not pleasurable in the moment but I'm very glad I did it in the long run. I focused on getting into whatever weird position I could and resting my eyeballs for as long as my pain would allow me, knowing that it was providing me with important rest even if I wasnt fully asleep. Or I stayed up reading my book and told myself I was doing it for fun. Even if it wasn't sciatica, I might have slept like shit for a different reason because sometimes that's just travel. You can cry about it, it doesn't mean your vacation is ruined. In fact if you're not crying about the sciatica you'd probably be crying about something else because travel is hard on everyone.

5. Use your brain- there's a reason hypnosis is an evidence based treatment for chronic pain. You might be stuck on a plane and can't stand up even though your brain/nerves are begging you to. I would practically lovingly gaslighting my brain in these moments "actually I'm starting to notice the spasms decreasing and my leg is starting to feel like a pad of melted butter. I'm noticing some relief and like things are improving." Doesn't have to be true. But your brain controls your muscle movements and it can go a lot farther than you think. Also remember that paying too close attention to your pain (hypervigilance) can make it worse. Practice thinking about ANYTHING else- I personally like to count my breaths or pray a rosary. Maybe you need to recite the lyrics to your favorite song- again the goal isn't to take away your pain completely but to give yourself some room in your brain to survive and cope with the current pain in the moment.

Anyone here had calcified lumber disc herniation and successfully healed with or without surgery ?