Herniated disc recovery

After nearly two months of fairly constant pain and not being able to do anything, I’ve just got the MRI results back confirming that the cause is a herniated lumbar disc pressing on the nerve.  I’m feeling pretty depressed by the whole thing at the moment – there has been a tiny amount of improvement over the last month but it feels fairly insignificant and I can’t see an end in sight.  I’m having to stand for most of the day as sitting and lying down is uncomfortable, and getting up afterwards is agony.  I’m also knackered all the time as sleep is extremely broken.  I’m sure there must be many on here that have suffered a similar (or worse) injury and I’m hoping you can give me some positive insights to keep me from despairing too much.

What did you find helped recovery?  My osteopath gave the standard advice of keeping active with light exercise that doesn’t involve lifting or twisting.  I’ve been walking, but that seems to aggravate things immediately afterwards – maybe that’s just in the short term though and longer term it will be helping.  I intend to keep doing it anyway as otherwise I’m going to go insane not being able to get outdoors.

Has anyone tried cycling on a trainer with this sort of injury.  Cycling in a normal position would obviously be a bad idea, but seated upright (i.e. no hands on the bars) on a trainer seems like it could be beneficial in small doses.

How long before people have been able to get back on the bike properly?  Right now it feels like this may never happen, but I’m hoping that’s just the pain and depression talking.

From experience, do whatever you can rather than what people say you can.
Try the trainer, your back will soon let you know if it’s a bad idea.

I lost pretty much a year in my mid 30’s to a herniated disc. I found other things to keep me distracted, the pain can be horrible, up there with tooth ache.
I quite enjoyed some of the pain killers, if I’m being honest.
Had surgery on mine and now at my half century, still riding, still doing stupid things.

Yeah, I should just try the trainer.  The only issue is that it’s not set up at the moment and clearing the garage enough to do so is not something I’m able to do right now – I just need to persuade my wife that it may not be the worst idea in the world.

I’m hoping it won’t come to surgery.  My osteopath has said that is a last resort, which makes sense because of the obvious risks.

Trying to get painkillers out of my GP is like getting blood out of a stone.  I understand the caution around opioids but at the moment they are only prescribing a maximum of 30mg of codeine and they expect 56 15mg tablets to last a month – if I took their maximum stated dosage of 2 x 15 mg tablets up to 4 times a day then that would only last a week, so I have to ration them out even further despite being in severe pain a lot of the time.  The ridiculous thing is that they seem happy to prescribe double the dosage in large quantities to my mum indefinitely for much lower level pain.

I had two impacting the sciatic nerve. The pain is horrible and constant. You really have my sympathy as there doesn’t seem to be any relief and back pain is a right royal b’stard.

In the end, I elected for a percutaeneous discectomy. That is, a narrow tube is inserted into the disc through the skin then evacuated with suction making the disc colapse and therefore no longer pressing onto the nerve.

They do this whilst you’re awake in a doggy style receiving position on all fours – under the influence of some incredible drugs.

No cuts, no stitches, no physio, no extended recovery just (almost) instant relief. I even drove home though that really wasn’t recommended due to the drugs and any possible delayed side effects.

Get a referral from your GP and if you have BUPA or similar, you’re golden. If not, start making some noise or if you can, pay up. It really is worth it.

Bon courage. 👍

<edit> Gabapentin is you’re friend. Stay off the Codeine as it usually has pretty negative side effects. Tramadol, Morphine etc works but you get tolerant and dependant pretty rapidly.

When I had the same issue, the military physio got me to do lots of Cobra Pose, every 2-3 hours, 5 reps, increasing to 10.

Once it had stabilised, lots of core work with mobility and conditioning with own body weight Worked a charm, this was all done with minimal drugs as I have a sensitivity to opioids. Wasn’t easy, but got me there and back to full deployability at 42.

I can send you the conditioning guide if you’d like.

All injuries are so individual even  if it really bad time does heal if you are patient in recovery.

I had and still get issues wirh a similar injury and actually find riding does help and or her exercise as well when in pain, I cannot often get out a chair ,but after an easy bike ride ,I am loosened up again

It WILL  improve over time, but its terrible for us outdoor types.

Walking is great starting point  and build up slowly again and the first thing to do from my experience.

As well as back treatment,  proper sports injury treatment can release tension on lower body which also is related to  (my) back maybe yours as well. Glutes etc.

Esp if your stiff and bad at stretching which may have helped cause the issue?

Same for light body weight exercises as you improve.

Helps balance the body and help realign from our bad habits.

Going forward learn to spin on the indoor trainer with high rpm over grinding it out.

It’s so hard to sleep when body in constant tension / pain mode.

A dose of painkillers at night does help a bit.  Cold blast of water on shower can help surge of blood to the area as well.

It will all be in “spasm” mode until it settles down again

I thought I would never ride a bike again, but eventually did.

Once healed learn basic yoga stetching and basic core exercises to help in the future you will find the ones that help most.

Good luck.

I hope that helps a bit.

From memory I had 30mg codeine 4 times a day and an amount of Diazepam (I can’t remember) was a while ago.
It’s odd how they decide on pain relief. I’ve seen a friend being given morphine for a broken collarbone whereas I got paracetamol for the same injury.

I didn’t think it was doing anything but the day of the surgery I had to stop all pain killers. I remember head butting the gurney before the pre med trying to distract myself from the pain.
When I woke up after surgery it was bliss.

If a suggestion to your other half doesn’t work for clearing the garage, maybe something you can very slowly work on yourself.

Oh, also prescribed a massive box of 30/500 co-codamol, for arthritis. Which is way way less painful than a herniated disc, who knows?

Thanks all for the advice and comments.  A quick Google suggests that Gabapentin may be a better option than codeine – I’ll raise it with the docs and see what they think.  The percutaeneous discectomy also sounds like a great option if there’s no improvement through non-operative options, so thanks for that.

@relapsed_mandalorian – the conditioning guide would be much appreciated, I’ve sent you a DM.

Mine has hung around to annoy. I cant kneel down on one knee(not good working on a bike at floor level) without it ending up in screaming agony after a few minutes. sitting on a hard floor can cause discomfort too.
TBH I’m not sure it(the pain) is ever going to leave you and while it is subdued for most of the time, things like kneeling can make it flare up.
Just have to find positions that dont aggravate it.

One thing I did learn about waking up to find you’ve a herniated disc pressing so hard on the sciatic nerve that standing, sitting or even lying down is agonizing, is not to get on your bike and ride 300m to the top of the road because you’ve ran out of coffee.

Sounds really uncomfortable and frustrating

No direct experience of disc problems, but of some pain relief options…..
I’d be wary of codiene\cocodamol due to potential for constipation, which isn’t going to help

Also gabapentin and pregabalin are controlled drugs, so your GP may be reluctant to prescribe, others on here will be able to give you GP perspective

Good luck and hope you make a good recovery

Similar to the above, pretty much lost a year because of it. I eventually worked out that walking helped me. The 1st half mile being awful but then the pain pretty much disappeared. It came back afterwards but I kept at it and eventually the herniated disc retreated.

I still suffer, especially in the morning. Damaged nerve maybe?  However I can do everything I used to do but I’m extra careful when lifting etc.

Re. the cycling: this all happened during my road bike phase and there was no way I could sit on it. Eventually I worked out that a more upright MTB was tolerable and I started using that.

Moral of the story: keep moving.

My Wife suffered with 2 herniated discs November 2022, She thinks it was due to lifting too many heavy items including children out of cars and washing baskets over the years.  She does not ride bikes.

She had an MRI and this highlighted that she had 2 herniated discs and 1 disc bulge, these were identified as pressing on different nerves so the pain was shooting down her leg and there was as possibility of C.E.S, which can be very serious!

The first 6 months of the year were awful for her, she was in a horrendous pain and a lot of spasms. As others have said a lot of pain killers were prescribed including Pregabalin but the GP’s were very unhelpful.  Although she was referred to a surgeon, he was reluctant to perform an operation at that time, hoping that things would improve in due course.

She did a lot of research and came across IDD therapy.  Having found a local Chiropractor who had this equipment, she gave it a go.  A year later, she has now had another MRI and it is like looking at another persons MRI scan.  She is also completely off pain killers and is almost pain free.  Exercises were given as well as the IDD therapy and is now more flexible than she has been in a very long time, and is looking forward to trying new activities next year including cycling!

I would avoid the surgery if possible – last resort only.  Sorted mine with plenty of physio and core excersizes, with a steroid injection to help reduce the inflammation so that I could get more active and do the physio. I fly jets for a living and some of the long haul trips were making things worse – basically sitting down for extended periods is a no-no. You need to keep moving as a priority. Cue me strolling up and down the cabin and doing some interesting stretches out of sight of the passengers every few hours while my first officer looked after things upfront.

Weirdly the thing that seemed to make mine better (ending the scietica) was snowboarding. Guess all the twisting and movement helped to loosen things up. I also found the McKenzie stretches really helped too. Look them up if you don’t know about them already.

Back in 2006/7 I had a nerve block injection under sedation. A brilliant thing as it allowed me to get properly mobile, climb and exercise properly. Lots of core work and bike riding later and so far (touch wood) it has not recurred.

Mine was pressing on the Sciatic nerve and caused muscles in my leg to spasm, 6 weeks at a time off work whenever it was very bad. Had to ask a manager where he had trained medically when he suggested a back brace!

I would avoid the surgery if possible – last resort only. Sorted mine with plenty of physio and core excersizes

Yeah, everyone is different. My Discectomy was strongly advised due to the level of impingement.

Ultimately whilst it can be debilitating and it can be hard to see an end of the pain, there’s usually a path to being pain free.

I’m pretty much normal these days, with the odd flare up like any normal bit of back ache if I do anything daft.

Ok, so I had two disc bulges L4/L5 & L5/S1 at easter pressing on the s1 nerve.

Nearly a month laid out, no sitting.

I started short walks, by short I mean the first was down the drive and back.
For me regular walks building to regular 30mins.

My problem is nerve damage I can flex my right foot. There is some strength but it might take a year, it might not heal at all.

I didn’t do any lifting for a good 3 months (I was close that that I might need emergency surgery) and just did gentle exercise. Walks and swims. Now some weights but no deadlifts or weighted squats.
My back is almost healed now, it can ache if stood all day though.

I was in a similar condition, couldn’t walk more than 50m (and in pain even for that), couldn’t lift more than 5kg, for about a month – gradually improved from there. I could, however, paddle a kayak, and it even seemed to help. Riding a bike didn’t help, because there wasn’t enough movement of my spine (riding off-road not as bad as on-road). So, yes, it’s likely to improve, but don’t assume that what helps other people will help you. Some exercises that were suggested to me (by other sufferers, not medics) made things worse.

My physio said I should keep moving and if necessary take ibuprofen/naproxen to enable that – which worked for me (but he omitted to recommend also taking something like omeprazole to reduce the risk of stomach damage). Alex22 says snowboarding helped; in my case skiing – I was still suffering when I started 10 days skiing, and had no trouble by the end or for month afterwards.

Find out what reduces your symptoms, and what makes them worse, then follow that. There are some things that are bad for me when I have symptoms, but good when I’m symptom free, for reducing the risk of a future problem.

Some short pointers from me…

1. > Moral of the story: keep moving.
^ this 100%.  Avoid rest. Try to carry on as normal. Keep walking, build it up, starting slow, short distances, if you can only go around the living room table it’s better than doing nothing.Next day add some more laps. Eventually you should move onto gentle cycling or other things you love.

Motion is lotion. Some movement will hurt, the pain mostly reflects how inflamed/irritated the structures are, not how damaged your back is. But you want the pain to be trending in the downwards direction.

2. Read the back book (Prof Martin Roland et al): it contains the latest advice about back pain, someone added it online so you can read it for free:   https://www.musicianshealth.co.uk/thebackbook.pdf  The book is short/succinct for a reason.

4.  I’m another avoider of surgery. I went to Bupa as I had cover via work: MRI showed I had two herniated discs (N.B. Scans don’t always show the cause of the pain, some herniated discs impact no nerves and might not be the source) The  physio they gave made it worse for me I was still in loads of pain 6 months later, also the next MRI I had showed a big progression in the severity of my two herniated discs. In that time I had been on gabapentin, naproxen, amitryptaline and had had 3 epidurals. This was breaking point for me I was considering surgery but I changed physio after 6 months of the bupa nonsense. My new physio (started Jan 2020) that had me doing gentle, low amplitude exercises, little and often, I was able to get off all pain killers, had no more time off work, and was back on the bike by summer.

Don’t go crazy with it, little and often, try to carry on your life as normal and avoid rest, it’ll be a bit painful for a while, but it means you get to do the things you love sooner. You’ve got this.

Thump had a herniated disc.

Aged 15 from playing basketball. Crabbed sideways and couldn’t sit in class – had exemption to stand and go for walks if required.

Lots of weights and core-strength work (and I mean lots!), taking the meds every day (I am tempted to say diclofenac), and it got better over 6 months.

Stopped basketball and now powerlifts to a high standard. Aged 17,  I’d say he was cured.

Good luck !

A note of hope! Back in 1987 I had ruptured discs and displaced discs in my lower back, after two weeks on traction (weights on your ankles) I had a scan (revolutionary then). I had an operation, not keyhole, with a 25% chance of walking again. I was on my feet the next day and back at work as a Firefighter six months later, I completed 32 years service. The only trouble I’ve had since has been stress related muscle/scar tissue spasms and since I retired very few problems! Now 63 and very active, the fear and lack of movement can exacerbate any small problems I discovered, keep positive and keep moving. Keep posting with progress.

Good to hear some positive stories, it’s helping to start to drag me out of the pit of depression I’ve been in for the last couple of weeks.  All the suggestions are great too – I appreciate that everyone reacts to things differently and these injuries are not all alike, but a list of stuff to check out and try is very helpful.

I certainly don’t think I’m in as bad a place as it sounds like some of you were. I can now walk for around 45 minutes without too much pain (at least once I’ve loosened up a bit).  Putting my socks on is a different story though!

Quick update on this.

Just after my last post I had a massive setback – was worse than it was in the first place, couldn’t get out of bed for three days, could only walk a few steps at a time, couldn’t stand for longer than a minute.  I went to see a spinal consultant who looked at my MRI results – he laid out the options but his parting words were “well done, they don’t normally slip that much!”.  I was pretty much ready to push the button on surgery, but after a couple of weeks I was starting to make some good progress and so decided to hold off.  My plan was to stick it out but that if it got worse again then I would go ahead with surgery.  At about this time I also managed to speak to a GP who seemed to have a clue what she was talking about – she switched out the codeine (which was doing nothing) for amitriptyline.

Progress has been slow but there have been noticeable gains most weeks – one or two minor setbacks but nothing significant.  Anyway, long-story-short:  I’m now back on the bike and for the most part pain-free.  Certain things still cause pain – bending in a certain way, car journeys, etc. – but the pain is short-lived and not particularly severe.  Regular physio, with daily exercises as prescribed by the physio, plus walking as much as possible has been the way forward for me.

I’m still taking the amitriptyline and taking things slowly.  Mostly I’m just doing low- to moderate-intensity turbo sessions, but I’ve done a few gravel rides of up to a couple of hours.  Being back on the bike has done wonders for my mental health – that has been the hardest part of the whole thing.  Thanks to everyone that posted encouragement and tips above – it was a real help.

Well that’s encouraging! I hope the steady progress continues 😊

Keeping moving is the key. Loosen up those muscles. So maybe a heat pack(if not already). Found those so called back creams are rubbish really, though I was in acute mode and nothing like that really helped.

But a bit of movement, preferably while on a strong painkiller to dull it a bit. I remember the occupational therapy people would come in. And it would be an agonizing struggle to take 3 steps at the beginning, but the OT nurses are saying things like ‘that’s good’, as you grimace your way across the floor 😆

But after a while the pain lessens as the area frees up and the spine can relax, which i believe helps the soft disc part to move back to where it should be. After that just gentle exercises to rebuild the strength of those muscles.

But you will get there, just can take a while.

At about this time I also managed to speak to a GP who seemed to have a clue what she was talking about – she switched out the codeine (which was doing nothing) for amitriptyline.

How are you finding the amitryptiline? I was taking it for another reason but found it was making me feel really detached so I stopped.

No issues with the amitriptyline.  Take it last thing at night to avoid drowsiness as prescribed by the doc.  I’m on 30mg, which I believe is a relatively low dose compared to when it’s prescribed for other reasons.