Back on July 4th got back from a bike ride then my back got really sore over the next few days, I have been in terrible pain since then. I had MRI turns out I have a Annular Tear in L3 L4 the disk is protruding out 6mm into the nerves, I have had one epidural 10 days ago, been doing lots of physical therapy but nothing seems to take away that nerve pain into my groin and low back it is driving me insane with pain, what’s next I don’t know maybe surgery? right now I can’t ride can’t run or go to the gym just about can do a little swimming and like I mentioned tons of stretching and back exercises to try to relieve the pain… this is not any fun believe me… Anyone got any good answers to this horrible mess? appreciate any input if you know of this issue as back issues have never been an issue until this just happened. Cheers LA Rob
I’m sorry you are going through this. Are you taking anything specifically for nerve pain?
Not sure what type of therapy or stretches that you are doing, but look into McKenzie therapy. You can find a provider at http://www.mckenzieinstituteusa.org/#, look under find a provider. I am a PT and have used this method for years with great results. Good luck. Back pain is no fun.
6mm is pretty substantial. I had 8mm at L2/L3 impinging on my sciatic nerve causing the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my upper leg - like a vice clamp on my femur, crushing it. It was determined spinal fusion was my best bet. I had a minimally invasive procedure called Interlaminar Lumbar Instrumented Fusion (ILIF). It took an hour and I was walking the next day, with a back brace and then swimming again once the staples were removed from the incision and the little holes healed up. I’m extremely happy with the results and am running, swimming and cycling once again and doing quite well.
MRI of bulge
X-ray showing device
Incision healing - less than 3 inches long
For me, I found that swimming did the best at relieving pain and gave me some traction while in the water. It let my body decompress the disc that was bulging. Have you tried the plank like stretch that has you prop up yourself up on elbows and hang
to your hips on the floor, then slightly pulling forward to decompress the disc. Hope this helps. Back pain is no fun!
Thanks for the responses, I was given a compound medication from the back doc to see if it would help along with Lidocain patches they did give me an Rx for Neurontin to help with the nerve pain but they just knock me out. I have been doing all sorts of stretches the P/T has shown me along with searching myself on the web both for low back pain and femoral nerve stretching. I have had one epidural with another one scheduled in a weeks time but I just hate to be going through the motions if at the end of it all I will need some sort of surgery, but I will keep up all the P/T etc. and do what I can, I will check out the book on stretching as well as at this stage I will do anything if it will help just a fraction as some days life isn’t worth living with this pain for sure… Cheers LA Rob