curious myself, I have a ruptured L4 and Ruptured L5S1 so bad now that every run by mile 4 or so both feed are dead numb stumps. im having a nerve conduction study done soon to determine if damage is perm, and surgery will be forced. I used to get those shooting pains in both legs especially after long bike, lots of stretching, rolling, yoga, but all is temporary, i just fight through and deal with it. but my patience is wearing thin. i used to think it was my shoes, but running barefootb confirmed the numbness. its a huge limfac but i battle on

I had similar issues, started off with pain on right side upper hammy thought it was piriformis, then started on left side thats when I realized it wasn't piriformis. What helped me was yoga and lower back stretches, I do them every night before bed. Also started sleeping with a pillow under my knees while sleeping on my back. If you want the specific stretches PM me and I will try and describe them or shoot you a video. Good luck, probably before you do any stretches you should make sure the inflamation is gone.

I’ve had success following the free Foundation Training video on YouTube. It’s only 12 minutes long.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4BOTvaRaDjI

Once I felt like that was just a warm up, I started doing Pilates. I try to do Pilates 2 times a week. We have a subscription to Pilates anytime so we can do it from home.

My back pain presented more when I sat in my work chair or when driving. I got a thermarest lumbar support pillow for the car or airplane and got a special chair for my work desk.

All those things help. But building core strength through foundation and Pilates helps keep it away.

Good luck! Back pain is the worst

Sorry if this a bit long winded but my nerve pain started back in 2012 when I had an IVC filter rupture into the L3 disk and Femoral nerve root, at the time no one realized that was causing all the nerve pain, hence I had nerves removed from my groin which helped somewhat but not with the back pain. Then in 2015 the pain started to get really bad once again so I had a bunch of MRI's which showed an annular tear at L3 L4. Over the following years I had about a dozen epidurals all with little nerve pain relief, I had a pesos nerve block didn't help, a groin nerve ablation, you name it I tried it, then in 2018 I went through 3 lots of Stem Cell treatments where they injected the stuff right into the disk sort of helped for a few weeks, but it really didn't work liked the doctor had hoped.

Then this past February I had a discectomy of L3 L4. Well the next day my right leg was paralyzed I could hardly move it, I thought what the heck have I done, but I knew I had to work on it so each day I would move it to the best I could, little by little things started to improve, and here I am today 8 weeks later, NO real nerve pain, yes some other sensations I have not experienced before but nothing like I went through for the past 5 plus years. The doctor told me I have a lot of scare tissue on the femoral nerve and the disk surrounding it from where the filter had ruptured into the disk and nerve root, but I have to say it has been a lot of hard work to date but I am now walking 8 miles a day, actually went out on my bike for a 5 mile ride on the 8 weeks post surgery date and will keep this up all being well, my biggest issue now is the wound has not healed due to my body rejecting the stitches and so I still have an open wound that is healing from the inside out.

I was scared to death of having the surgery to be honest but right now I am so glad I did to be nerve pain free after all these years is a blessing yes I have a ways to go and realize my back will never be the same but it was all worth it. I just wish I had found my neurosurgeon years ago instead of wasting all that time and money on the other treatments that didn't help what so ever, I had a femoral nerve that was compressed by the protruding disk for over 5 plus years I guess damage was done by waiting for so long. Good luck if you find the right doc you will be fine.

It is really hard to give you some solid advice at this point in time. Given your history and the new symptoms you are getting, imaging (ie MRI) is ideally placed to help figure out if there has been any progression and any new cause for the pain. Unfortunately in the current medical climate this is difficult.
In terms of options, there are obviously physical and pharmaceutical options you can explore. Pharma wise, Lyrica has its place but is actually going out of favour with a lot of pain specialists now. for a variety of reasons including some psychiatric side effects and issues are efficacy. There are other options for neuropathic type of pain, including some lower dose anti-depressant medications as well as some of the more typical standard both non opioid and partial opioid agonist medications.
My personal advice at this point would be to get linked in with a good PT and see your family doctor re starting other medications with some nerve stabilisation properties, until you can get your MRI and a more definitive answer. If symptoms worsen or you get weakness etc it should be treated as an emergency and you may be able to get the scan sooner.

I had an L5/S1 disc herniation 10 years ago. I was given a first round of cortisone, and the pain immediately went away. Once the shot wore off, it came back. So I got a second shot, and hired a private yoga instructor. I told her I couldn't do any trunk rotations or anything could irritate that spot, and we worked together 2-3 times a week for a few weeks doing safe exercises. Once that second cortisone shot wore off, I was back in business. I'm not sure if it was the yoga or the passage of time, however. Seems to be different for everyone.

I (along with every other response here) can only truly talk to my own experience and diagnosis, and anything I mention has to be taken in the context that each individual case is different, and should always be confirmed and guided by a medical professional.

Based on your description, it sounds like our symptoms are/were very similar. I suffered from a fairly significant amount of sciatic pain that increased in severity over a few months. An MRI helped confirm a large focal disc extrusion at L5/S1. It's been a long road back to full fitness, but after 2 1/2 years I'm now back training pain-free.

Things that helped:

• Naproxen for the pain/inflammation caused by the disc on the sciatic nerve
• Lots of mobility work in the early days, progressing to core stability work then now spending a lot of time on strength and conditioning in the gym. Unfortunately, once injured there is always going to be a higher risk of recurrence with disc problems, so my physio has guided me to do as much as possible to strengthen the muscles surrounding the problem area
• A high-quality, physiotherapy-led bike fit. We eventually narrowed the principal cause of the initial injury down to the wrong size of bike frame, which was crunching me up too much in the aerobars and putting far too much pressure on my lower back. I'm now riding a size bigger frame, with approx 55mm more reach. Interestingly, the fit also lowered my stack by about 5mm
• At the peak of the injury, I kept mobile. Zero activity that would cause stress in the injured area, but lots of walks and the odd (easy) swim
• I've revisited my work setup (I work mostly from home). No more slouching on the sofa and making sure I have proper back support when sitting at a desk

Things that didn't help:

• My GP tried a few different neural painkillers. Started with amitriptyline, then gabapentin & eventually pregabalin. None really had a material impact
• Trying to ignore the problem & push too hard. I had a couple of "false starts" where I pushed too hard, too early and ended up regressing symptom-wise
• Wanting to go back for multiple MRIs. I'm based in the UK so the situation here may be different, but the guidance I had through the NHS was that they would treat based on symptoms rather than scans. The initial scan located and diagnosed the issue, but going back for more wouldn't help with my recovery

For context, a cortisone injection was never an option as I have an acute phobia of any needle. However, based on my discussion with a pain consultant, the impact was only ever likely to be temporary and wouldn't address the underlying problem.

Sorry not to be able to present the "magic bullet", but if my experience has taught me one thing it's that the single most important element of recovery is time. It's frustrating as hell, but I had to keep telling myself that I was going to come back stronger as a result of all the groundwork I was laying through S&C and gym work. Time will tell if that's the case, but up until COVID put a halt on any racing (and pre-race hard sessions), I was definitely in the best form of my life.

Thanks I'll definitely check it out!

Thanks for the info. I read the same about Lyrica so I'm not too worried about not trying it, and at one point back when I initially got hurt I tried Gabapentin without any improvement.

I will continue the PT I've been doing at home for now. I have the ability to do telesessions with my therapist until their officve opens back up so I'll check in with her periodically. Other than that I guess all I can do is wait for my MRI!

Good info, thanks! I'm limited on the strength trianing I can do currently since the only equipment I have at home are bands and some very light dumbells, but I have a pretty good core strength/PT routine going which I will continue.

Interesting on your bike fit. Riding is the only thing keeping me sane right now and generally it hasn't worsened any symptoms. I do use my tri bike on the trainer but ride mostly on the base bars rather than aero. The bike was professionally fit a few years ago but I have tinkered with the position since then. I never really considered that it could be a bike fit issue.

Assuming you’re in the early stages of rehab, I wouldn’t see a lack of equipment as an obstacle. For what it’s worth, the first few months for me were entirely body weight-based so no need for weights. Bands can help with certain exercises.

It may well not be fit-related for you. It was for me but I’m sure there’s more than one possible cause. One rule I was given by my physio was that if it didn’t cause discomfort, it was fine to do. So by the sounds of it, riding is good for you as there’s no symptoms or discomfort.

Either way, all the best on the journey.